Moral Danger
by Mendeia
Summary: Richie and Virgil are trying to figure out their complicated relationship, and Richie's powers are starting to get out of hand. And now Tim's internal fight is spreading to Static and Gear, a fight our heroes can't afford to lose! COMPLETE!
1. Complications

I do not own Static Shock and I only take credit for any characters not from the series. This is for my entertainment only, that and hopefully a few other people's. Reviews are helpful, guys, but flames will not be tolerated. No like-y, no read-y, got it? Good. _Pats readers on head_

Enjoy!

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Richie felt something close around him, pinning his arms to his sides and immobilizing him. He turned his head wildly to see his attacker, but the afternoon had somehow become darker. If only Backpack were here, instead of back in his locker at school!

"Static! Help!" Richie tried to call, but to his surprise, nothing more than a whimper came out. He opened his mouth and strained, trying desperately to push sound from his throat, but it seemed blocked. Try as he might, he could not shout. His analytical mind whirled in rapid thought, but could not find any rational explanation for this forced silence.

"Help…" he croaked as the hold on him got tighter and he felt the world spinning away.

--==OOO==--

Richie gasped for air as he flung himself upward, only to find himself tangled in somewhat damp sheets. He coughed and sputtered and tried to get his breathing under control. He looked around wildly, slowly calming down at the sight of Virgil's vary familiar room, and his very familiar body asleep in the bed next to him.

_It was a dream_, he told himself over and over, _just a dream. Forget it. Come on, let it go. Just a dream!_ But somehow, he didn't feel better. Rather than trying to go back to sleep, he sat up and stretched, feeling the cool night air wash some of the dream away.

For as long as he could remember, Richie's nightmares had always had one thing in common: an inability to call for help. Whenever he dreamed of danger or trouble, and the dream turned from something resembling a B-hero movie to a more sinister experience, his ability to cry out, to summon attention and help, disappeared right along with the high of heroism. He became helpless, a gagged child, and something about that inexplicable gag bothered him to his core. He had dreamed this fear again and again for years, and he was no closer to solving the mystery of the silence.

_What is it that makes me feel like I can't call for help in my dreams?_ Richie wondered as he swung his legs over the edge of the bed and padded down the hallway to the Hawkins' bathroom. He knew their house so well after all this time, and was practically another member of the family. Ever since his father had lost his job, Richie's home life had gone from bad to worse. Mr. Hawkins had long ago stopped asking for reasons why Virgil insisted his best friend spend the night so often, and Richie knew there was a very strong probability the shrewd social worker knew the real story of his home life. But they all shared an unspoken pact: Richie didn't bring it up unless he needed real help and no one asked him to explain. It had worked so far.

Looking at himself in the cheerfully lit bathroom, Richie grimaced a bit. His face was pale and his eyes looked haggard, a consequence of extreme exhaustion and sudden terror colliding with the way his muscles controlled the regions around his cheeks. He splashed some water on his face and took a sip from the faucet, remembering someone who had once said bad dreams were a sign of dehydration in the night.

_That's bogus,_ Richie though. _They just say that so kids will have something to _do_ when they're scared in the night. It takes their minds off of their dreams and allows their brains to go back to reality peacefully, instead of dragging them along in the memory of whatever is causing the dream. _For good measure, Richie splashed some more water on his hair and neck. _Not that it can't hurt. My brain is so full anyway, maybe this time it will relax and take a rest._

Deep down, Richie knew that was one of his secret fears about his super-brain, that he would never again know peace in himself. He found his thoughts jumped all over the place, from metaphysics to politics, science to sociology, math to mechanics, never at rest and very rarely going in the same direction at once. When he was busy, either talking, playing video games, or focusing on dealing with Bang Babies, it was better, as the babble inside quieted down and focused on the task at hand. But it was the times when he was alone with his thoughts that his mind ran like an electric train with Static giving it all the power he could. And with about as much precision, jumping from one thought to another and back again in a continuously changing pattern. For while his inherent intelligence had increased exponentially, so had the actual workings of his mind, making him more likely to come up with random things and making them fit together than taking a single problem and working solely on it for a time. On the one hand, it made him imminently more flexible in his thinking, more able to deal with the unexpected in a creative and sometimes downright brilliant manner. But on the other hand, it kept him up nights and days, interrupted peaceful times with Virgil, and generally made him feel like he had an anthill in his mind, the thoughts running about gathering data and taking it back to the queen for consumption, with a single goal, but different paths and erratic behavior. He sighed.

_Bed now,_ he thought hard, trying to think only of the comfort of sleep as he headed back to Virgil's room. _Bed, which is rest and also a term used for the back of a pick-up truck or a garden-patch…Bed! Where I sleep!_ he shouted in his mind before his brain really got going. Standing in the doorway to the room, he smiled and felt the ants all go to sleep inside. _Bed with Virgil._

That was the one thing that really made his life bearable. Virgil. Richie smiled as he watched the boy curl up tightly in the blankets, trying to inch his way closer to where Richie should have been. Virgil's normally crazy hair was even wackier when he was asleep, as sometimes his own dreams would kick off little bursts of his power and make his head into an octopus with a life of its own. But he did sleep soundly, Richie knew, as he crawled back into the bed.

_If the Bang Babies ever attacked in the night,_ he thought fondly, _we would be screwed because I wouldn't be able to wake Static in time. Or at all! Man, V, you sleep like concrete and it would still react faster than you!_

But it was the one peaceful thing in his life, Richie knew. Being with Virgil, either as Gear and Static or as best friends, the very presence of this one person made all the crazy things and pieces in his life seem to fall together or fall away. And even though things were definitely weird between them, everything was starting to settle out. And no one could take away the private joy Richie still held in his friend, not even Virgil himself. _Friendship, _his brain murmured quietly as it slowly shut down his consciousness to rest,_ may be a two-way street, but it can still be a beautiful parkway even when there aren't any other cars coming to meet me._ _And he isn't coming, but he doesn't have to. All I need is to know he's out there somewhere. It will be enough. _

--==OOO==--

Looking back on it, Richie still didn't know if he was gay because he was in love with Virgil or if he was in love with Virgil because he was gay. Both seemed equally true, in their own ways. All he knew, all he had known for a long time, was that he was complete with Virgil in a way no girl had ever made him feel. In his heart, words like "soulmate" fit like a glove to the way he felt about his best friend, chagrined as he was to use such tired clichés. But his best friend was so busy chasing Daisy, it didn't seem to matter. Not that Virgil ever neglected Richie for his girl. Between crime-fighting, the almost nightly sleepovers, and the fact that they had spent most of their lives learning, knowing, and living each other's schedules, it was a fact that Daisy had more trouble finding time with Virgil than Richie had. But there were still things that pricked him every day. Virgil passing a note to Daisy in class. Virgil sitting next to Daisy with his arm pressed against hers. Virgil taking Daisy to concerts and things. And Virgil doodling Daisy's name when he thought no one was looking. All those things made Richie sigh inwardly, feeling hopeless that what he felt, that what he _wanted_, could ever come to fruition.

And then, one day, Virgil just out and asked him the thing he'd been worrying about.

"Hey, Rich, do you think, if I asked Daisy to marry me, she'd say yes?"

It was something he didn't want to answer. He _really_ didn't want to answer that question. So he pretended to think about it for a while, trying not to notice the intense curiosity starting to blossom in his friend's face. He tried to come up with some sort of suitable answer, something along the lines of "Well, I don't know, aren't we a little young to be thinking about that, V?" but that isn't want he blurted out at the last minute.

What came out was, "I hope not."

The shocked look on Virgil's face was a mirror of Richie's own. It was not what either of them had expected him to say. But his mouth betrayed him and it was out there. And no matter how Richie wanted to take the words back, he couldn't. So as Virgil sputtered for an explanation, eyes wide with confusion and betrayal, Richie looked down and prepared himself. He hadn't wanted it to come out this way. He hadn't wanted it to come out at all, come to think of it. But there was no going back now.

"Wha-what do you mean, you hope not? What are you talkin' about, man?" Virgil said, surprise, more than anger, coloring his words.

"I love you, Virg."

Silence.

Then, "You don't mean…you're not sayin'…are you? Rich?" Virgil's voice turning from incredulity to anxiety, worry, and maybe fear?

"Yeah, V. Like that. I love you. I-I didn't want you to know," Richie said, ducking his head even lower. "I can't help how I feel, but I always wanted to stay your best friend. Always. I would never have told you, I don't think. It doesn't matter."

"What do you think, it doesn't matter? Of course it matters! Richie," and this time Virgil's face was much softer, "you _are_ my best friend and you always will be. Hey, I don't have to understand it. It's kind of flattering, really," he said, smiling a bit. Virgil put a cautious hand on Richie's shoulder, causing the blonde boy to look up, eyes sorry and with more despair that Virgil liked seeing in his friend.

"Look, we'll just let it go, all right? I know it's there and I won't make you stop it, okay? And you do whatever you need to, alright?" There was hope in Virgil's voice. Nervous hope.

"All right. We can just forget I said anything."

Wrong.

--==OOO==--

They had let it go between them for a while after that. Virgil didn't bring it up, and Richie tried hard not to focus on it, either on his feelings or on the fact that he had actually admitted them in the open. Things seemed cool between them on the outside, but somehow they both felt nervous where there hadn't been nerves before, not that that was possible, Richie's mind reminded him periodically. Sometimes in the middle of a conversation they would just stop and look at each other almost fearfully. Laughter would cut out as suddenly as it could begin. And while sometimes their spontaneous hugs or signs of brotherly affection went as before, other times they seemed forced, even fake. Even Daisy noticed it. Richie came upon her talking with Virgil in a quiet, concerned way, but when she saw him coming, she quickly shushed Virgil and smiled brightly. The all-too cheerful questions about "are you really okay?" and statements like "you know you can talk to me if you need to" told him all he needed to know about Daisy's opinions on the friendship that was wilting between them.

And that was the worst of it. Richie felt that his time with Virgil was running out, that before long, where a wonderful bond had been, there would only be strangers, no longer trusting or understanding each other. He could see barriers where there hadn't been any before, and he knew Virgil was keeping secrets. Sometimes Virgil would look at Richie with a troubled expression, but when Richie questioned him about it, V always dismissed it as nothing. And then he would look again.

_Man, he doesn't know how easy he is to read_, he thought to himself, noting with meticulous accuracy the slight widening and narrowing of the eyes, the jumpy fingers, the tight shoulders, and the smile that did not quite extend up the cheeks to the corners of Virgil's eyes. _He says he's fine, but "fine" is defined as…never mind! Not what he is! That's what "fine" is, the opposite of that!_ he shouted at his brain.

That was another, equally, if not more worrying problem. Richie's mind was starting to really bother him. Well, it had always been a bit annoying, although wonderful, being a genius, but there were some things he just didn't want to know about, like what is really in hot dogs and how exactly his best friend's digestive system reacted to beans. But that wasn't the thing that kept Richie worried beyond his strained friendship with Virgil. It seemed like lately his thinking had become more and more chaotic. During the day, the ants in his brain seemed to be getting ready for war, moving more frantically than ever and in increasingly chaotic patterns. He used to be able to keep a handle on it, but now the only time Richie could really control the chaos was by out-shouting it, mentally of course, periodically. The only peace he found was when Virgil was asleep, as he was when Richie had nightmares. Something about the quiet of the evening helped keep it at bay a bit, gave him back his control for a time. But if he didn't keep it in check, it ran wherever it wanted to, which is why he got in so much trouble in math class.

Math was not a struggle for Richie. It never had been, but since becoming a genius, it was even less of a struggle. In fact, math wasn't even interesting anymore, not at the high school level. Maybe really advanced physics or the theory of the unprovable equations, but not basic geometry and calculus. So Richie's mind tended to wander farther than usual in math. Other classes might trigger thoughts or provide facts he didn't have yet, but when it came to math, it was all over. So when he was called upon, he tended to make himself look like a fool.

Example:

"Mr. Foley, since you seem so relaxed in the back row," says his teacher, walking menacingly down the aisle toward the drifting Richie, "perhaps you can tell us what the derivative of cos(x) is?"

Richie, paying no attention to his mind, is unable to call it back from wherever it goes quickly enough and pops out with "Shakespeare's _The Tempest_." In actuality, his mind had been using advanced calculus to take the anti-derivative of a much more complex problem to calculate the exact probability of one money typing out the famous work in its entirety with no errors, unless you counted those bits of English grammar and spelling that have changed over time, in which case you have two different scenarios, but the probability should only change a minute amount, based upon the number of letters eliminated by the modern usage. But either way, before his mind could even come up with a possible escape route from the situation, he was, as he said later, fully and royally screwed when it came to math class.

And it was happening more and more. This distracting maze that had developed in his mind was now a full-blown, 3-D visual illusion and Richie the person was wandering up and down flights of stairs in it hoping that he was standing straight up instead of at a 90 degree angle. It bothered Richie because it was becoming increasingly harder for him to control this chaos, or even to break out of it. More than once, Virgil had had to literally shock him to get his attention, although Richie just passed it off as "working on a problem." But it was a problem and a big one.

"Maybe this is why they all go insane," he muttered to himself as he flew out on patrol with Static one evening after a particularly bad episode at home involving his mind running out and leaving him to his father's anger. "Not because they are emotionally unstable or evil, but because they can't help it. Maybe this is what it's like to go truly and fully mad." The full and complete text of _Alice in Wonderland_ ran quickly through his head, making analytical comparisons between himself and every character in the novel until he established that he was only 38 similar in behavior and mannerism to the Mad Hatter, even at his worst, but this was somehow not comforting. He sighed.

"What's the matter, bro?" Static called, having heard Gear's sigh.

"Oh, nothing, just working on a problem," Gear called back, trying to make his voice the light, capable tone it usually was. The tone that came out, however, was much more tired that he would have wanted.

"Must be a big problem," Static pointed out. "You've been stuck on it for days and you're barely comprehensible when you're thinking about it? Why don't you talk about it? Maybe I can throw a monkey wrench into that crazy brain of yours and slow it down some?" The hero smiled at his partner.

"I wish you could," Gear began, but somehow he couldn't bring himself to go into the long difficulty of explaining losing one's mind to one's best friend. Before coming out to Virgil, he would have tried to tell him as soon as he noticed the odd lack of control coming over him, but now, now that things were different between them, he couldn't bring himself to. It wasn't fair, he knew that, but if Static couldn't tell him what was wrong either, then at least they were being equally unfair to each other. _Some friendship. The only time we still really work on the friendship-level is when we're apart or asleep._

"Look, Gear, if you'd just…" Static stopped in mid sentence and turned towards the west. "Hear that?" Gear listened, all the while having backpack analyze the sounds, identifying them as indeed, some kind of large public disturbance.

"Sounds like trouble, Static," he said, glad that his brain could focus on the task at hand, although he couldn't seem to stop the part of him that was working on comparing the style and composition quality of Beethoven's 8th and 9th symphonies.

"Let's go!" Static called, turning his board to fly into the face of whatever danger lay ahead. Gear, beside him, saw the confident, heroic look on his partner's face. He had a bad feeling about the fight and wished Static wasn't so, so…cowboy heroic all the time! This could be real trouble.

And when they got there, Gear was right. It was real trouble, of a very unusual kind.


	2. Smoke and Mirrors

Thank you to all the wonderful reviewers who gave me encouragement as I continue this story. I promise, I will not leave this story unfinished forever, not if I can help it. As always, not mine, blah blah blah, not for profit, blah blah blah, you get the point.

Remember, reviews are nice, but ideas and support are always better!

* * *

Static was just as glad to hear trouble on the horizon after hearing Gear's short and empty responses to his questions. It seemed like no matter what he tried, he could not get his best friend to give him an honest, factual answer to simple questions anymore. Things like "what's wrong" "how're you doing" and "whatcha thinking" went unanswered, or as good as unanswered anyway. Gear dodged the questions with random answers like "fine," "nothing," "working on a problem," or "huh," depending on the circumstances. Static didn't like it. His best friend was keeping secrets! So the distraction of hero-work was a welcome one to the electrified teenager.

As they flew in the direction of the chaos, Static glanced back at Gear flying at his side. Somehow, being like this, Static felt fully complete. He had loved being Static before, hero against bang babies, protector of Dakota, but somehow he never noticed it was an incomplete joy. But now, now that Gear, best friend and partner (not sidekick!) joined in on the hero-work, now Static felt fully realized and satisfied with it all. Now it felt right. He grinned a bit at Gear flying behind, was yet again amazed with Gear's ability to use those crazy boots to get around, and passed an approving eye over Gear's face. The tight worry, or occasional absent-mindedness he had seen so recently in his friend's face was gone. Now there was only the well-known "thinking" look, which Static took to mean that Gear was analyzing the situation from afar. Man, but it helped knowing what they were up against BEFORE they got the scene!

"Static, it looks like we've got some kind of new bang baby ahead, powers unusual…" Gear's voice trailed off as he tried to verbalize the information passing through his mind.

"Another one?" Static sighed. "How many new bang babies can there be? Man, it seems like every time something happens, it's got to be a new kid with new powers who still hates us! Sometimes I miss old Hotstreak. Stupid, but predictable!" He slowed down to watch Gear think. Gear's face was a quickly changing face that looked like it was trying to read Portuguese and then transform it into a chemical equation. "What is it, bro?"

"I'm not sure…" Gear trailed off again. The information coming in was just too weird to be believed!

"Well, we'll just have to go and see then. Can't waste time out here!" Static yelled, and before Gear could break his concentration to stop him, Static sped off on his board.

--==OOO==--

Chaos was the perfect word to describe it. A city street corner had gone from being perfectly normal with shops and peaceful pedestrians, to a center of utter chaos. Mostly, the people on the street were behaving very strangely, Static noticed as he came up, riding low on his board. Almost all of them were crying. He lowered himself to the ground, not seeing any mutated or even odd-looking people who could be meta-humans.

"I can't see, I can't see!" wailed a girl a few years younger than Static. He caught her arm and looked into her face. Her eyes were wide open, but she seemed to have trouble focusing. He shook her.

"Calm down! What happened?" Static asked. The girl's face turned in his direction.

"I don't know," she whimpered. "I was just walking along, and then I felt something, like a smack on the back of my head, and then I couldn't see!" She began to cry again. "I can tell that it's light out, and I can see your shape in front of me, whoever you are, but everything else is washed out. It's gone!"

Gear landed next to them, and pointed over to another group of people. These people were lying on the sidewalk, moaning and some of them yelling, all their voices tight with fear. Static helped the girl sit down on the sidewalk and moved with Gear to the group on the ground. Gear, eye critical and calculating, reached out and took a man's hand.

"What happened?"

"I don't know. But I was just waiting for the bus and…" a small tear slipped from the man's eye and slid down his dark cheek. "I fell. And now I can't seem to stand anymore." Richie looked over at the man's legs. They looked physically normal, but when the boys tried to help the man rise, he could put no weight on them at all. He crumpled to the ground with a groan somewhere between frustration and fear. Gear took Static's arm and led him away from the group.

"I surveyed the area. There look to be about 16 people suffering from this inexplicable blindness and 9 who can't stand. But there doesn't appear to be anything physically wrong with them!" He shook his head. Static could see the sweat standing out on Gear's face through his shielded helmet. "I mean, it looks like a random bunch of people, various ages, races, social classes, etc, just suddenly became afflicted with a plague!"

"What can we do, bro?" Static asked, nervously. Having seen the terror in the girl's now-blind eyes and the fear and frustration in the lame man, he did not want to experience it first-hand.

"I'm not sure. The best we can do for now, I think, is to try and establish some sort of control group. We need to know who didn't experience this, and maybe why they aren't suffering the way these other people are." Gear looked around carefully, nudging Backpack with his mind to seek out any other people in the area who were not incapacitated. Backpack came back with a moving subject 100 meters away. "There!"

Static was so glad of something to do, he jumped on his board before he saw what Gear was pointing at. It was a boy, blinking in the sunlight and moving rapidly away from the scene. As he started to follow on his board, he heard a terrible strangled cry and smelled smoke. Turning back, he saw Gear doing possibly the most stupid thing he had ever seen his partner do. Gear was flying straight into a store which was burning violently and rapidly to the ground.

--==OOO==--

Just as Static's heart began to lurch, he remembered the boy. The great hero's dilemma caught him: save the innocent people or chase the bad guy? Static pounded his fist into his palm with a snarl and moved back, away from the fleeing boy and towards the shop, now fully engulfed in flame. He smelled gasoline and something else, and the dark, oily clouds of smoke that coiled up from the shop into the sky told of a very strong accelerant behind the sudden blaze out of nowhere. Static used his powers to snap the top off of a nearby fire hydrant and warp the metal so the stream of water would aim in the right direction, although he knew it would take time before the water could out-do the force of the fire.

"Gear!" he shouted as the fire got hotter and the clouds of smoke thicker. Static's heart pounded. Where was he? He tried to peer into the inferno for his friend. "Gear!"

"Static…" coughed a voice from the fire. Then, "Help!" That was all the encouragement Static needed. He threw his arms over his face and went barreling into the burning shop.

The heat was intense, as was the smoke. This oily, smoky fire was nothing like Hotstreak's bursts of flame. Static's board caught on something and he lost his balance and fell to the ground. Coughing, he pulled down the goggles he sometimes wore on his head, glad of the little relief they gave his watering eyes. As he tried to breathe through the cloth of his costume, he spotted Gear, coughing and spluttering, trying to lift a woman from the floor. Static hurried over.

"Static," Gear coughed, his voice wheezing, "there are two more people there. I can't carry them all." Backpack was valiantly trying to drag the other, unconscious people towards them. Static gathered his powers and lifted them, and Backpack right along with them, although his head was buzzing from the smoke and he was covered with sweat from the heat.

"Can't take much more" he gasped as he hoisted the two into the air, drew his board near and got on. Gear, behind him, gathered the woman into his arms and shakily launched himself into the air. Static sent a tendril of his power back to help Gear fly through the smoke. He could feel his power draining as he slowly doused out his own electrical energy with sweat that dried in the heat but was quickly replaced. Coughing and near collapse, the pair emerged from the storefront to hear the welcome sound of sirens. They dropped to the ground and Gear ran quickly to check the pulse and breathing of the three victims. They were all alive, but only barely. None of them was getting enough oxygen.

"Static, we need an ambulance now!" Gear cried, pulling out Backpack and a make-shift hand-held respirator. It looked like a rubber balloon with a mouthpiece. He put the facemask over the face of one of the two people Static had rescued, a young man, and began compressing the bag with all his might.

Static launched himself back into the air, still coughing, now fully aware of his eyes streaming from the smoke and his throat burning. Some part of his mind also registered that if he was as covered with soot as Gear was, they both looked less like heroes and more like chimney-sweeps. Rising into the air, he saw the fire truck on the way, an ambulance just behind. He dropped down until he was along side the van and called into the driver "There's people who can't breathe! We think they're dying! They can't breathe!" he tried to yell over his own breathlessness and the roar of the wind as they raced through the streets. The driver nodded and shouted something back at the others in the van. Static, satisfied, flew on ahead to check on the people.

Returning to the scene, he noticed the building that was on fire for the first time. It was a bookstore, and something in his heart ached for the loss of the books. Sure he was a video game fiend, but he also knew and loved the power of the written word. Then the fire-truck and ambulance raced past him. Turning from the sight, out of the corner of his eye he saw the people who had been suddenly blind and lame again and turned to look over in confusion at the change in them. The girl he had spoken to before reacted with joy as he came near again.

"I can see again! I can see!"

"You can? How?" he said, more to himself than to her.

"I don't know. But I started to feel funny and then my eyes started to see, although I could only see a little, like I had been crossing my eyes. But slowly it got better and now I can see!" Static nodded to her distractedly and flew over to the man who had been paralyzed.

"Yes, I can use my legs again, too," the man from before said, relieved. "My legs started to hurt, and now they can almost hold me and it's getting better all the time."

"I'm glad," Static said, hurriedly, and worked away from the group to return to Gear to tell him how things had changed. As he moved around the parked fire truck to where he had left his partner, Gear trudged up to him wearily.

"They're going to be okay," he said quietly, turning to look at the medics who were intubating the three victims and putting them on oxygen. "They had all very nearly stopped breathing, and I tried to give them air, but it wasn't helping. But they'll be okay now, I think." His voice was strained and the cough that rattled behind his chest didn't sound good.

"You all right, Gear?" Static asked, noticing his own cough for the first time as it threatened to split him in two.

"We're both suffering from smoke inhalation, probably some burns on the interior lining of our lungs and trachea," Gear said automatically, sweat starting to make streaks in the grime on his face and neck. He coughed violently. "I was in there a while. I wouldn't have made it out without you, bro," he croaked weakly, trying to smile.

"The kid got away," Virgil said, trying to change the topic away from how close he'd been to losing his best friend. "I started after him but then I heard you and…and he got away," Static finished lamely.

"That's okay, bro, we saved the people. You know," a far-away look entered Gear's eyes as he made the "thinking hard" face that Static knew so well, "there's too many odd things here for it to be coincidence. There are the people who couldn't see" he ticked them off on a blackened finger, "the people who couldn't walk," another blackened finger, this one bleeding, "and then the fire. It's all too odd, especially when…"

"What?" Static practically shouted as Gear paused to "think hard" some more.

"Well, those three inside. It wasn't the fire alone that put them in that condition," he said, motioning over to the three victims who were now being placed on gurneys and loaded into additional ambulances that had arrived. "They weren't breathing before the fire was set. I'm sure of it. It wasn't the fire that did that."

"Then what? What could stop them from breathing? Were they strangled?" At Gear's shaking head, Static searched for possible answers and found none. "How? Why?" Static asked, almost frantically.

"I'm not sure. What could stop people from being able to see or walk? Unless there's an anti-Christ walking around that I'm not aware of, that should be impossible," Gear said, intending a joke. But a funny look came over his face and he turned towards the way the running boy had gone. Static looked in the direction, too, and remembered his Sunday school classes.

"It couldn't be…"


	3. Thou Shalt Not

Thank you to all the wonderful, wonderful reviewers who kept me going on this. I tried to live up to your expectations, although this one is not what you were expecting. Anyway, let me know what you think!

Also, not for profit, only fun, blah blah legal blah blah stuff. No likey the slash, no readey my story, got it? Good.

Enjoy!

* * *

"God have mercy on me, God have mercy on me," Timothy whimpered even as he snuck through the deserted streets of Dakota. The night air was cool and the darkness had a deep smell to it, things Tim had always noticed. Smell, sound, touch, these were the defining characteristics of Tim's life. Nothing else seemed to work right.

He moved slowly, hobbling on the crutches and braces he was forced to wear. Ever since he'd been a child, he had been contained within the prison of metal and glass that made life possible: glasses and crutches. His legs had been born misshapen, forcing him into a weak, shuffling walk which was only possible because of the leg braces and walker he used. People often called him "Forest Gump," and it irritated him to no end because unlike the movie character, Tim would never be able to throw off his braces and walk or run like a normal kid. Between the braces and walker, over the years he had learned a kind of heaving and shuffling step, but without both he was completely immobile. Stumbling about, he often had to rest to push his thick glasses up his nose as well, as they tended to slip from the bumpy ride of his gait. The lenses were thick, thicker than most people had ever seen. Tim was legally blind in both eyes due to extremely poor vision that had developed around age three, but with very thick glasses, he could see pretty well. And so, feeling about ninety years old, helpless and frustrated, he made his way through life.

But tonight he demanded freedom. Still praying partly out of habit, partly out of guilt, and partly out of fear, he made his way to the parking-lot where his deal would go down. It was near the docks, an area he knew he was supposed to avoid, but that was where his contact wanted to meet him. As he entered the deserted lot, blacktop making a scraping noise beneath his metal limbs, a shadow detached itself from the wall, smiling.

"You came, huh? Never would've bet on it, but then, I suppose you really do need this stuff, huh?" a voice no older than himself asked.

Tim was glad the darkness hid his flush as his shame roared in the blood in his ears. "Anybody else who saw this," he had the sudden thought, "would think we're talking drugs." Deep down, Tim almost wished he were doing drugs.

"Let's get it over with," he said abruptly, leaning on his walker long enough to swing his mostly empty backpack around, open it, and dump it open onto the pavement. A dozen comic books fluttered to the ground, landing in a messy pile between the boys. The second boy darted forward and pulled out a flashlight.

"Hmm. You don't treat 'em right, do ya? Well, well, let's see what we have…Monster's Return, third edition! Where'd you find that? There aren't that many of them left! And…" he rattled off the other titles, whispering to himself comments about quality, age, and wear and tear of each book. Then, with a wide, self-satisfied smile, he stood.

"Yeah, I think the trade will be fine." Smiling still, he pulled his own backpack out and lifted out a few well-loved magazines. Tim could feel his hands shaking as he reached for them, not daring to look but only to secure them in his bag for later...

BBBOOOOOMMMMM!

The sudden explosion rocked the ground beneath their feet. Tim felt his balance swaying and crashed to the ground with a loud and painful clatter. The other boy grabbed the comic books and ran without a single backwards glance. Tim tried to lift himself, but the braces were caught in his walker and one of the supports had bent in the force of his fall. Suddenly looking up, he saw a cloud of strange looking smoke heading for him, emanating from the docks beyond the parking lot. He could hear distant sirens and lots of shouting. He started to cough, then coughing became wheezing and pain in his throat and chest.

"No, God, please not now!" he prayed fervently as he tried to control his breathing. Somewhere, in a pocket maybe, was his inhaler. Anxiety and exercise always sent him into asthma attacks, sometimes severe ones that required hospitalization. But no one knew where he was, no one would be able to get him help. He had to get his breathing under control, and quickly. He fumbled with the pocket and gasped in despair when he saw the inhaler crushed, the cartridge punctured by his bent brace. His breathing was getting shallower, more rapid, and he suddenly found himself awash in the strange smoke. It smelled sweet at first, but then burned his throat and made his eyes water and stream. It was like breathing pepper.

"Oh, God, please help me! Make it go away! Please, please I'll do anything, only please don't punish me for this! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to sin! Please, please, I'll do anything, only please don't leave me like this! Help me!" his cries dissolved into coughing and he fainted.

--==OOO==--

Hours later, Timothy awoke, hearing sirens still. He managed a groan and opened his eyes to see a police officer leaning over him. With concern in his eyes, the dark officer bent down to take the boy's searching hand.

"What happened, son? Are you all right?" the officer asked. Gently, he lifted the boy in his surprisingly strong arms and shouted over his shoulder, "Hey, we got a kid here! Could be hurt!"

Tim felt his mind clearing and realized how much trouble he was in now. How on earth was he going to explain why he had been out in the night, found by a police officer at what was probably the scene of a major crime? Silently, he began to pray for forgiveness once more, keeping his tightly eyes closed and ignoring the officer's concerned questions. "God forgive me, please, I didn't mean to sin, I'm sorry. Please forgive me, please don't punish me. I'll be good again, I won't sin again, I promise. Only please make it go away!"

A startled gasp from behind him caused him to open his eyes. A female officer who had come up beside the one holding him was rubbing her hands on her thighs as though in pain.

"Are you all right?" asked the officer holding Tim.

"I'm fine," she said with a puzzled look on her face. "I just had a sudden pain in my legs and my knees felt like they were going to go."

"You need some rest. You've been up all night," the officer said gently. Turning back to Tim, he said, "Do you need an ambulance, or do you just want me to drive you home?" Tim almost laughed in relief. His prayer was answered! Now he could just sneak back in and his mother would never know. He gave a quick thankful prayer before answering the kind officer.

"If you'll drive me home, I'll be fine," he said, trying to sound brave. "Thank you..." And with a prayer half-whispered on his lips, Tim slipped back into oblivion.

--==OOO==--

It was a week later that everything was revealed to Tim. He and his mother were fighting, again, and he was getting angry. He knew it was a sin to dishonor his mother and father, but Tim had trouble seeing why he should be held to that Commandment. To his way of thinking, he had no more reason to honor his father than he had to honor a drug dealer, a murderer, or a prostitute. His father was worse than all three. And as for his mother, if she wasn't smart enough to figure out how evil and unholy his father had been, he probably didn't owe her too much respect anyway. But he threw in an extra prayer just in case.

"God, give me the strength, wisdom, and patience to help her. I know I'm right and I know one day she'll see that sinners don't really deserve the kind of things she gives him. Sinners should be punished. She'll see that one day. Only help me now to honor her and teach her your judgment at the same time."

Tim's mother, wispy blond hair pulled back into a messy knot, leaned wearily on the kitchen counter, watching her son with his eyes closed, fists clenched, sitting at their table. She thought he was holding back tears and moved softly to put her hand on his shoulder. His eyes opened and looked at her with an unreadable expression.

"Tim, I know you miss him. I'm so sorry things worked out this way. But, you've got to see that hating him isn't going to change anything. Just try to forgive him and move on, okay?" her voice was soft, pleading. Tim did not look up to see the tears in her eyes. "I know it's hard, baby. I loved him too. But there are some things we can't control and we just have to ask God to help us learn from them. We can ask together you know…" she suggested, reaching out for his clenched hands. Tim snatched them away.

"I don't need _your_ help talking to God! You don't understand anything, least of all God!" he said in a furious burst, then stomped out of the room, shaking and praying, walker creaking beneath his trembling hands. He could feel his asthma kicking in and struggled to control it. His rage was fueling his asthma and blocking his real aim, to get her to understand sin, and he felt himself losing control. He prayed to regain control over himself so he could go back there and try to convince her to see the truth. "Just make it go away. Please teach her about what sin is and what we have to do with sinners. Make it go away and make her see that she can't love him for it. Make it go away!" he prayed.

She screamed.

Suddenly, Tim's legs felt light, tingly, definitely odd. His knees shook for an instant, and then he felt a sort of "click" run through him. His mother cried out again, more weakly this time, in what sounded like anguish. Without thinking, Tim dropped his walker and ran to her side. Lying on the kitchen floor, a gash on her forehead and blood dripping from the edge of the table, his mother was whimpering. "My legs, oh, God, my legs," she wept. Tim looked and saw nothing wrong with her pale legs, somewhat revealed by her long skirt. And then he looked down.

He was standing under his own power.

He turned back towards the hall and saw the walker where he had thrown it aside. Tim's mother, tears trickling down her face, looked up at her son in shock. "A miracle, Tim, you can walk! God must have sent you to help me…" and she fainted. Tim realized she was losing blood rapidly from the cut on her head. He was worried he wouldn't be able to stop the bleeding in time on his own, so with his heart in his throat, he ran to the phone for help. Even in the face of his fear, he could not help reveling in the freedom of being able to run, to stand up straight, to be normal for an instant. He spoke into the phone with tight, fear-cramped words. When he was sure the ambulance was on its way, he dropped the phone and ran back to his mother.

Dropping to his knees as fluidly as a dancer, he pulled off his t-shirt and tried to staunch the steady flow of blood from her forehead. Watching the red, wet blood pool on his hands, he tried to wake her.

"Mom, mom please wake up. Please, please wake up," he said frantically. Her eyes fluttered open.

"I'm alright, sweetie," she said weakly. "The cut isn't that bad." Her eyes clouded over and she looked blankly at her feet. "I just can't seem to stand up." She tried to keep the quiver out of her voice, but Timothy could hear it. He pulled her head onto his knees and tenderly tried to staunch the bleeding. As his mother tried to move her legs, Tim prayed again.

"God, please, whatever you did to her legs, please undo it. I'll give back my ability to walk if it means she can walk again. I don't want my mom to be scared anymore. She's already hurt so much. Please make her better. Please make her better."

--==OOO==--

By the time the ambulance workers had finished stitching up her head (it required a few stitches but not a trip to the hospital), Tim's mom had regained the full use of her legs. The medics said that shock could sometimes cause anomalies like that, and also pointed out the sudden miracle of Tim's ability to walk as evidence for what the stress of a perceived emergency could do to a person's body. By now, of course, the "miracle" had worn off. Tim hobbled around with his walker and braces as usual, feeling no more strength in his legs than in an imaginary tail. His mother accepted their solution and, after resting a while, set to clean up the mess in the kitchen from her accident, humming happily. Every time Tim turned to look at her, her eyes were shining and she kept murmuring to herself, "Thank you, God, for showing my son what love and forgiveness are capable of."

Tim turned away and went to his room to think. He didn't buy the medics' explanation at all. In fact, he _knew_ better. He watched the news, so he was fully aware of the rash of "bang babies" that had emerged from that accident at the docks. He had no doubt that he was one of them. Furious, he threw his walker aside and slumped on his bed.

"Why me!" he moaned to no one in particular. "Isn't there enough wrong with me already?" He pushed himself in to a sitting position and clenched his fists, staring at his Bible on his nightstand. "Is this your idea of a joke? To make me an even bigger freak?" Tim reached over to fling the Bible across the room, and as it thumped into place atop a pile of laundry, something fluttered beside him on the bed. He picked it up.

It was an old picture of himself a few years younger, standing between two people. One was his mother, and he missed seeing her happy, uplifted face as it was shown in the image. The other individual was his father. Anger and betrayal in his heart turned back to rage. The man with the fine, even features and carefully combed brown hair was gone and would never come back. Tim raised his hands to tear it, feeling rage boiling inside him. And that was when God's plan was revealed to him, all in a flash. Stunned, Tim dropped the picture and sat quite still. As if in a dream, he felt himself sitting up straighter and holding his head up. For the first time in a long, long time, Timothy felt full of strength and hope. He was to be the instrument of God's justice, and he could not wait to start.


	4. Collision

Well, I'm sorry for the long hiatus. I did a little work on my other story, and then I discovered a new anime and…well.. Sorry! But I promise I never forgot about you or this particular adventure and I will not leave you hanging forever! So, without further ado…

Oh, wait, there's some ado left. I don't own Static Shock or the characters except the ones I invent, legal blah blah, etc. There. Now, on to the main event!

* * *

Richie's face felt hot and he knew the blood pulsing in his ears was affecting the appearance of the pigmentation of his skin. Even brilliant, he still felt inadequate when he made a mistake and got laughed at by the class. _But it isn't my fault,_ his mind rallied itself, trying to restore some semblance of his dignity, even as he wanted to crawl under the proverbial rock and die. Richie's brain was getting better, or worse, depending on how you looked at it, and once again, it had landed him in trouble.

It had been a week since the attack on the bookstore, and Richie was no closer to figuring out who had been behind it or why the place had been attacked at all. His frustration made his mind even more chaotic, even harder to control, especially in class, where his attention wandered the most. This time, it was history that had lost his attention so thoroughly. While the teacher had been talking about the events leading up to World War I, Richie had started wondering about the "Nature versus Nurture" argument and was trying to track the aggression of mankind in relation to possessing territory back in time to a point where he could distinguish it from the territorial tendencies of animals. He was really starting to get somewhere, and even enjoying the pursuit of understanding, when the teacher had woken him out of his contemplation of a dozen different interpretations of the evolution of human beings and the rise of civilizations with the question, "So, Richie, what exactly was the catalyst to World War I?" Contemporary history was far from his mind. So his brain blurted out, "Man's ability to create fire whenever he wanted it which could drive animals and other men away from his…" His mouth finally caught up to his brain and he floundered, blushing.

Hunching down into his hooded sweatshirt, Richie watched the teacher frown disapprovingly and walk off, asking Daisy instead, who correctly identified the assassination of the Archduke as the most obvious and sudden catalyst of the war. Before Richie's mind could wander off into the various eye-witness accounts of the shooting and determine the exact angle of the fatal shot, he shut his eyes tightly and tried to out-shout the chaotic rush of facts, figures, and computations in his mind. But nothing worked. His brain seemed to have two goals in life: to drive Richie crazy with an overflow of thought, and to override his good judgment in search of that thought.

Richie blinked in surprise at the new idea as it flashed through him: his mind _wanted_ to be heard. It _wanted_ to shout out all the random things floating through it, to tell other people everything it now understood. Somehow, his brain had turned sharing knowledge into a craving, almost an addiction. His mind needed to people all the things in his head, sharing all the insights he had gleaned about every possible subject, explaining and teaching all the things that had fallen into place for him. He needed it with the kind of desperation that kept people hooked on drugs. _But why? _Richie demanded of his mind. _Why do I need to tell people everything I know, like some kind of parrot? Why does my brain crave it? What is so important about sharing all this crap!_ Two things happened at once, two things Richie never expected to happen again in his head.

First, there was silence, utter silence. All his brain's active and passive thinking, processing, and analyzing stopped, leaving him with an instant of inarticulate, blissful peace.

Second, his mind answered him. Richie's brain gave him a straight and simple answer as though someone else entirely were in there, answering questions at some kind of press conference. But Richie knew down to his core that he was answering his own less-aware self.

_**Because then I feel good about myself.**_

Richie thought about that for a moment, relishing the silence his mind had finally decided to share with him. It did make sense, in a way. Richie's self-esteem was pretty low to start with, and even now as a hero/genius he still felt largely like an outcast. He was neither popular, nor athletic. He was a nerd in the truest sense, not much more than your basic, run-of-the-mill geek with too much trivia stored up inside and no social life. And gay to boot, he thought ruefully, although he kept that secret almost as compulsively as he did his identity as Gear. Richie's mind started to whirl again, but now in one straight line, and he was actually controlling it!

"I guess I do feel pretty rotten most of the time. I mean, as Richie, I'm as boring as they get. Good grades. No real trouble at school. It's expected I be a certain kind of nerd and I am exactly that. I don't pay a whole lot of attention in class but still do well most of the time. I don't have a huge group of friends and I don't party. I'm the most stereotypical geek in any sitcom on TV, minus the whole genius thing. And the gay thing.

"And as Gear, then I'm the nerd-hero. Same stereotype. I'm not physically tough, I don't have any cool powers, and I don't do a whole lot. But I'm smart and I back up the 'real' hero. And yeah, that does kind of get me down, I guess. But why does telling people things make me feel better?"

He worked on it for a while, not really thinking but just letting his mind work on the problem. He knew that by not focusing on it, his mind would come up with the answer all on its own. Richie had learned long ago that his subconscious was a lot smarter than his conscious brain, and that sometimes the best way to solve something was to let the other half of himself plug away at it without interference. But this time it wasn't his mind that answered him, not exactly.

_**Because then I don't feel all alone.**_

Richie felt a cold shudder run through him. Thoughts and realizations were one thing, but the kind of emotional response he had just received from his brain was not only unprecedented, it was uncomfortable. Richie felt himself squirming internally. Heroes weren't supposed to feel lonely. They weren't really supposed to have feelings at all. _They're also not supposed to be gay, _his mind thought at him. Richie pushed it aside. He didn't want to think about feeling lonely. It was an isolating thing, after all, being a genius that no one could ever really understand. Richie had to admit that more than once he would have traded his new-found mental abilities for something more satisfying in a deeper way, not that he could even identify what that would entail. As he found himself comparing his childhood with the different psychological models for emotional development, Richie was not remarkably surprised to find how closely he correlated to the "distant, harsh parents, uncomfortable adolescence with peers, low self-esteem, low self-awareness, etc, equals emotional insecurity and discomfort, inexperience with expressing or understanding emotions, socially and emotionally isolated" camp. It was certainly true. He was lonely. He _wasn't_ comfortable with emotion. Rational thought was so much more, well, rational! It never turned on him and reminded him that he had a heart, not until now. And he really didn't know what he would have preferred out of his life, except maybe the impossible love he kept farther back than the brightest light could penetrate, spoken only once and never again.

Richie decided not to pursue it anymore. He consciously forced the feelings and ideas creeping forward back into the iron cage he had built and relinquished control of his mind to whatever caught his momentary attention. His brain returned to the anthill configuration and the powerful emotion faded, but somehow he could not forget the shadow of lonely isolation that he was now painfully aware of somewhere deep down inside.

--==OOO==--

The Abandoned Gas Station of Solitude was hardly living up to its name. In the first place, wasn't really a gas station anymore, as the pumps outside had been empty for a long time. In the second place, it was neither abandoned, nor a place of solitude. At least, not on a Friday afternoon.

Virgil, looking like Static on laundry-day, was bouncing around the station like a maniac. The Static t-shirt and long coat were fine, but he had forgotten the mask and goggles completely and was still wearing his school jeans and sneakers. Virgil was dancing like he was on speed and weed at the same time, headphones clearly blocking out reality. Richie sat at his table and watched, already changed to Gear himself minus the helmet, trying to hide his smile. _Fridays do weird things to V,_ he thought to himself. The sometimes-electric hero had rushed into the AGSS and had managed to get halfway changed into the Static costume before the urge to rock out to his music became overwhelming. It had been about a half hour and he was only getting warmed up. Although the dancing was new, Virgil's random outbursts of energy on Friday afternoons were as predictable as his appetite.

Born of long experience, Richie knew his partner would be completely spastic, and useless, until he ran out of energy doing whatever popped into his head for a while, so he turned back to the table. He was running some information between his brain, Backpack, and his helmet on the recent attack, trying to tie down any evidence found at the scene to identify the possible motives, identity, and abilities of the Bang Baby who was behind it. It wasn't going particularly well, as most of the evidence had disappeared with the burning bookstore and the Bang Baby hadn't really left anything behind. Trying desperately to ignore the fact that now Virgil was actually _singing_ along with his dance mix, Richie delegated a part of his mind to remember to kill his friend later for his taste in music and tried to go back to work, ignoring the less-than-silent music behind him.

_Not that V has a bad singing voice. Although_, he found himself thinking, _that stuff he's listening to wouldn't have been considered music until…Stop it!_ Richie shouted into his mind as the definition of "music" from the early Renaissance through the Romantic period swept through his mind as he compared style, theme, and a dozen other musical signifiers from more classical eras to modern radio pop, jazz, rock, rap, and country. Richie took a deep breath and tried to concentrate solely on his work as Gear, the things that mattered, like protecting people from a maniac who apparently had no motives. His mind whirled, and slowly settled back down into a more steady rhythm, although he couldn't stop the internal computations that were still distracting him from his real work. Then Richie made his mistake: he found himself wondering idly about the rhythm of his own brain in comparison to Virgil's dance behind him. _Virgil's dancing to something either a fast 4/4 or a slow 2/2, with heavy syncopation, while my brain, if thought could be converted into a time signature would be an pattern of alternating 16/8 and some kind of signature that could capture the speed of human thought, which, calculating…_

"Stop it!" Richie shouted at himself, clapping his hands to his head. His composure was cracking and he knew it. This wasn't the first time he had been unable to even think about something in passing without sending his brain off on a fishing expedition to explain everything. In fact, it happened all the time. But this time he could not seem to derail it in any way; his mind seemed intent on analyzing and explaining everything, all possible connections between everything and everything else, and anything else that it left out. He cursed the natural curiosity he had been born with, and the new super intelligence that drove him to interrupt whatever he was doing and consider new things at every turn. It was worse than trying to live with a three-year old who had just learned the phrase "But why?" Richie was tired of having to compromise with his own brain like it was another person entirely. "Just stop it, please. I can't take living like this any more!"

"Rich…?"

Richie sat bolt upright, causing his shoulders to ache at the sudden, tense movement. He had been speaking aloud! Feeling himself flush, and his mind run off to figure out how much extra blood was being diverted to his face, he turned. Virgil was standing in the center of the station, still looking ridiculous in his half-costume. He had turned off his music and was staring at his friend with a look of real concern. Richie groaned and felt the walls of secrecy he had been depending on crumble around him.

"Man, you okay?" Virgil asked hesitantly. He had wanted to tell Richie something and had taken off his headphones in time to see the boy's shoulders hunch like some kind of Quasimodo and hear him shouting at nothing. This was not normal behavior for his usually calm and controlled best friend. Staring at him now, Richie's eyes looked so harried, and Virgil was sure he had never seen his partner look so worn out. He took a step forward. "What's going on, Rich?"

Richie turned away and picked up his helmet, wishing he could pull it on, become Gear, and forget he ever had anything besides a brain. He slammed it down on the table next to Backpack while automatically calculating the amount of force he had used and comparing it to the endurance of the helmet and various other similar impacts he had received fighting. He turned back, feeling like his head was swimming, and not really caring what it figured out without him anymore. He found it hard to meet Virgil's concerned eyes. Some of those things he had locked away were breaking loose and sneaking to the surface.

"Nothing," he mumbled, trying to get around the chaos in his mind and the escape attempt going on in his heart.

"That's not nothing, bro," Virgil said, moving towards Richie. "You've been keeping stuff from me all this time, and I can see it's bugging you! Why don't you just tell me what's wrong?"

"I can't," Richie found himself answering. _Can't? Why can't I? Where did that come from?_

"Why not?" Virgil echoed.

Richie thought about it for a minute, even though he didn't really want to THINK about anything, or feel anything. He wanted peace in his mind again. Richie felt like he had been watching his brain like some kind of deranged movie, a documentary gone bad about the history of the world, the intricacies of all science, and everything else in human history and knowledge, crammed into a half-hour program. It was exhausting. _Why can't I tell him I'm losing control?_

And then it came to him as his mind, once again, went quiet: **_Because I'm scared._**

It didn't take a genius to dissect that one, but it did take a couple of minutes of silence before he admitted it. The only thing Richie and his brain agreed on was that it was time to tell Virgil what was going on with him. His brain provided a dozen reasons to be honest, but the only ones that mattered were evident in the concern in Virgil's face. _He's my friend. He deserves to know. We still have that much, I hope._

"Look, V," Richie said, finding that as he spoke his mind unclogged and began to run again, "it's just that I think I'm getting too smart."

"Huh?"

Richie launched into an explanation of how his mind had started to run out of control, nearly blocking his very ability to think and reason at times, starting at the very first time he had noticed its chaotic workings were not what they had been before. There was so much he had been keeping to himself, he found it flowing out of him like water from a dam that had broken. His brain left him alone to go through the explanation, even sometimes helping clarify and reword the things he was trying to express. As he spoke, it became easier to regain control over himself, and he locked down the escapees from his heart, this time trying to wall them in to keep them from sneaking out again. Stealing glances up at his partner, he watched as Virgil's face shifted again and again, mostly between worry for his friend and annoyance that he hadn't been told sooner, but he said nothing. Richie hoped his truth wasn't too little, already too late.

"So that's it. Maybe as I get smarter, it gets harder for me to keep up with myself or something. I haven't really wanted to try to figure it out, and interestingly, it's the only puzzle my brain WON'T work on. Anything I see or hear during the day will start a full-blown scientific inquiry in there, but when I actually wonder why it's so hard to control and why it's getting worse, my own brain practically ignores me! It's like living with Sharon in here," he said, smiling weakly.

"Dude…" Virgil tried to figure out what to say first. He could see so much in Richie's face. He realized with a start how isolated his best friend had been the past few weeks, maybe how closed they had been towards each other. The blank looks and tight lines around Richie's eyes were fading into exhaustion, but at least it was a real, genuine expression. Virgil remembered with guilt a few things he hadn't been telling Richie either, although none of them were this big. Pushing aside all his rants about trust between friends, he reached out and put a hand on Richie's shoulder.

"It's alright, bro. We'll figure it out."

Richie looked up. Virgil was smiling at him in that easy, brotherly way he had always smiled. The hand on his shoulder was comfortable too, not the awkward "supposed to touch" gesture they had been sharing since Richie accidentally outed himself. The light in Virgil's brown eyes was sincere, and something in the belabored genius relaxed. _We're okay again, I think. I missed this_, Richie realized with an internal sigh, unconsciously relaxing a bit into the touch and the friendship it conveyed.

"So now what?" he asked, noticing that his shoulders didn't hurt for the first time in days. Richie hadn't realized how tense he had been feeling until suddenly some of it was released. He rolled his shoulders and cringed at the "pop" that echoed through his sockets. Virgil smiled.

"Well, I've got an idea. We could…" But Backpack's beeping interrupted whatever Virgil had been about to suggest. Richie whirled in his chair instinctively, pulled his helmet back on and scanned the incoming information, a chaotic mix of alerts pulled from police radio, overheard cell phone conversations which he could tap into, on-site video security information, and even some real-time satellite information hacked from the government.

"It's happening again!"

--==OOO==--

This time it was a coffee shop downtown, and by the time they arrived, Virgil finally all the way Static and not Static-with-no-hero-pants, the scene was a full-blown disaster on wheels. The popular hang-out was on fire, and it was burning quickly to the ground, causing billowing smoke to obscure the sky and half the street downwind. There was plenty of panic as people milled about, trying to be close enough to the fire to dare their own courage, yet far enough away to satisfy their fear. The crowds of suffering people from the last incident were not to be seen; in fact, there was only one knot of people standing nearby, all focused on a young woman sitting on the curb, holding her head in her hands and crying. Static moved quickly over to the nearest fire-hydrant and began using his powers to warp the metal so it would spray directly into the shop. Gear broke off and moved towards the only witnesses in the vicinity, figuring his partner could handle the danger on his own.

"What happened here?" he asked. The group of people, obviously the young woman's friends, looked at him with anger and hurt in their faces, and more than one of them stepped forward as though to prevent his approach. But the young woman looked up and waved them back.

"He-he asked me if I was married, and when I told him I don't believe in marriage, he…" here she broke off and turned away from the hero's gaze. A friend put his arm around her shoulder and looked at Gear, caught between distress and anger.

"This weird kid came up to us and asked if we were all married or engaged, as if it were any of his business. Elena answered him, like she said, and then he, I don't know, did something to her. Everything just started to hurt her. She said she couldn't see and couldn't feel her legs, and then she stopped breathing." He turned back to the distressed woman, gesturing with his hand for the others to fill in the gaps.

"He ran off, and we chased him, but he was fast, too fast. Disappeared around the corner there," put in another of her friends angrily. "And when we got back, the place was on fire and Elena was startin' to breathe again so we got her out of there. Everybody else ran off, I guess."

"Did he say anything else?" Gear asked. He was trying to gather all the information coming in from Backpack's readings, the various sources he pulled or hacked electronically, and most importantly, from the witnesses at the same time. Static had managed to subdue the fire enough that it would not spread to other buildings and he was busy clearing the immediate area for the firemen, so Gear was on his own as investigator this time.

"He…" Elena looked past her friends and up at Gear with anger and shame written in her eyes. "He told me that I deserved to die. Right before it started to hurt. And he called me a…"

"Something not nice," interrupted the first friend in a very firm tone of voice. The others nodded. Gear wanted to press them, to find out the specifics, but all their faces said "closed for business" and he had the feeling they wouldn't tell him if he asked. Even physically, they closed ranks around her, circling her and forming a wall of friendship to block Elena from the stares of the gathering crowd watching the fire. Gear said something he hoped would be taken as sympathy and moved off, brain racing to pull all the new information together, but one of the girls in the group detached herself and caught his elbow. Gear found himself looking up into the face of one angry woman, probably in her mid-twenties, and she definitely had a few inches of height on him.

"You find him, whoever that guy is. He's short, like you, with crazy brown hair and his face, well, he looks like a pretty unhappy kid, get it? Never saw him before, but we don't hang with kids. Find him. Tell him if he keeps on sayin' stuff like that to my friends, I'll make him hurt, too. Stop him, hero, okay?" and with a rough shove, sent Gear off from their little crowd. _Must be pretty awful, to make them that mad,_ he thought. Gear was just as glad his helmet was only partially transparent, blocking the red rush to his face and the unconscious fear he betrayed when he felt threatened. He had no intention of letting on that he was intimidated by her. Shuffling the new information through his mind, he moved towards Static, who had stepped back to watch the firefighters now on the scene in action.

He was halfway there when the world exploded.


	5. Holy Knight

Well, I'm sorry for the long hiatus again! What can I say? But I did promise to finish the story, and I really will. Especially now that I've actually got the Static Shock cartoon in full in my possession, I can use it for…inspiration. Or just wasting time, whichever comes first.

Oh, and for clarification: I do realize that in previous chapters I have used italics to show when Richie is consciously thinking and bold-italics for when his mind is answering him. However, in this chapter, since we're more looking over Virgil's shoulder, I needed to change the format on you. This time, the italics are a memory/flashback, and his thoughts are in quotes like speech as they were in Tim's chapter (but I promise to have let you know when it's thought and it's talking). When I go back to a chapter from Richie's perspective, I'll switch back again. Sorry for the confusion, and I realize it's a bit unprofessional, but it just kind of came out this way and it works for me so…sorry. I promise, it will always be clear what I'm doing, though. I just think that Richie's mind works a little differently than Virgil's and Tim's, so the thought processes (and therefore the representations of those processes) will be different, too.

And, as always, I don't own Static, Gear, a big house, or a fancy car. I do, however, own Tim, he-who-shall-be-named-shortly, my own beloved car, and a couple of cats. As much as anyone can "own" cats, that is. This is for fun, entertainment, and to eat up time when I'm bored, not profit. Don't sue me – I don't have any money and you can't have my cats!

Enjoy!

* * *

A blur in his peripheral vision was all the warning Static had before a blast of something knocked him to the ground. Momentarily stunned, he rolled over onto his knees, looking around in dazed confusion.

"Who…what…?"

"Static!" Gear shouted, sprinting towards his partner. Another blast rocked the sidewalk and Static could hear screams as the people gathered for the spectacle of a burning building started to panic and flee. He shook his head.

"I know I didn't get the number on that bus," Static muttered, climbing to his feet and pulling his board to him. A quick glance told him everything he needed to know. To the left were the civilians, running and shouting. To the right, Gear was airborne, trying desperately to avoid what looked like energy beams that followed his every move and reduced the surrounding structures to rubble where they struck. And straight ahead was…something incredible. Static, now standing on his board and lifting himself closer, felt his well-honed instincts and tactics melt away. He froze, staring in amazement.

On a rooftop across the street stood a young man that could have been pictured in the art of Michelangelo or the front-piece of a Bible. He had long, rich brown hair that flowed halfway down his back and warm skin the color of cappuccino. His face was long and angular with high cheekbones and a square jaw, and his body was well-muscled, which was obvious given he was shirtless and barefoot, wearing only a pair of black jeans. But the most striking thing about him was the pair of aerial, delicate, snowy wings that sprouted from his back, arched against the sunlight. All in all, he looked exactly like an angel, some kind of holy avenger or something. But the image of divine perfection was broken by the sinister expression on his face.

"And ye sinners shall burn!" he shouted in a deep, resonant voice. He lifted his right hand, palm out, and light shot from it like some kind of science fiction ray-gun, obliterating whatever it touched. As he trailed Gear, who was doing his best to get close with a Zap Cap, his face lit with an almost sadistic joy at the destruction in the wake of his power. Static shook himself back to reality. This was not a good guy. He had seen enough.

"Hey, Tinkerbell! Aren't you supposed to glow?" Static taunted, discharging a powerful blast of his electro-static energy towards the figure. Sustaining the power, he strategically placed himself between the baddie and Gear, who tried valiantly to catch his breath and get back into action.

"Thanks, bro," Gear said, winded. He was a little shaken by the speed and power of the attack, and without being able to get a shot with the Zap Cap, he felt somewhat helpless.

"Don't mention it," Static said flippantly. "It's cool…..argh!" The electrified hero had not been paying as close attention as he should have been to their foe, who had somehow blocked Static's discharge and launched one of his own, which glanced off his static force-field and knocked him off his board. Static tumbled in the air, pulled his disc back under himself with his power, and regained his lost altitude, grateful for the experience and training that made it so easy for him to recover from a fall without going splat.

"Fools! You cannot defeat a servant of God!" jeered the winged person. He neatly pumped his wings and, as the flight feathers spread out in a beautiful, statuesque way, took to the air himself. Static found himself staring again. Something about the way the sunlight bounced off his wings resulted in a prismatic effect, as though hundreds of tiny rainbows were exploding from his being. It was uniquely beautiful.

"Impressive," Static murmured to Gear as they angled themselves into a better position for a fight. "Sure he ain't the anti-Christ after all?"

"I'm sure," Gear confirmed, eyes unfocused as he processed the information from Backpack. "I'm showing something familiar on the electromagnetic spectrum. He's a Bang Baby, all right."

"I am not!" came the ringing, furious cry from before them. He released a cannon of power towards them and struck the offending Gear, who dropped from the sky like a stone. "I am Seraph, creation of God!"

"Gear!" Static shouted as he made a wild dive for his partner. A part of his mind noted how unfair it was that he could save himself from falling, but Richie could not. In a heartbeat of wild panic, his power lashed out and grabbed onto Backpack, stilling Gear's fall in midair. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Gear said, and Static could hear the wheeze of pain in his voice, "but my skates are fried. Looks like you're on your own." Static set his friend down on a nearby rooftop, then turned back to the fight at hand.

"What do you want?" he demanded. Seraph laughed.

"Why, what does any true servant desire? To cleanse the world in His honor!"

"You know, most people would consider us superheroes to be good-guys. You know, people NOT to cleanse?" Static pointed out, trying to gauge his opponent's abilities and weaknesses. He heard the Shock Vox crackle to life on his hip and smiled internally. It was just like Richie to find a way to help even when he was grounded.

"Watch it, Static. He's fast." The voice that came over the Vox was tired and, if Static was any expert, probably there were some broken ribs behind the wheezing, too.

"Yeah, I noticed that, Rich. Got any other bright insights?" he muttered, gathering his powers for a fight.

"I'm working on it…"

"You are not of the immortal order. You must submit, or die!" shouted Seraph, suddenly charging forward in the air and readying a blast of power. Static clenched his fists but spoke to the communicator with not a little trepidation in his voice.

"Work faster!"

--==OOO==--

"Geez, Rich, we've seen giant boogers, about a hundred different gang-bangers gone mutant, and as many Alva creeps as he can afford, and NONE of them ever put a hole like this in my cape!" Virgil moaned, plopping down on the couch in the AGSS and looking dejectedly at the ruin that was his cape before a very near-miss.

"Not a hundred, not even close yet. And you're lucky that wasn't your head," Richie pointed out automatically as he moved to his workbench to repair his skates, a hand pressed to his bruised, but thankfully not-quite-broken ribs.

"Tell me about it. I'm going to sleep for a week, okay?"

"Go ahead. I'll wake you in a bit," Richie answered nonchalantly, turning back to his repairs.

Virgil shrugged under the blanket and closed his eyes, but he could not seem to get the images of the battle out of his mind. This dude Seraph was a top-notch baddie, he had to admit. His flying and his aim were superb, and he seemed never to get tired, although that might have been the impressive muscles. Virgil found himself wondering again how somebody like that could have stayed hidden for so long after the first Big Bang, or even after the second. The guy was pretty distinctive; you would think someone would have noticed him before. And he had given Static a real run for his money. The fight had lasted for over an hour when Seraph unexpectedly turned and flew rapidly away, for no apparent reason. The hero, exhausted, had been unable to keep up, and so had relinquished this fight as a loss. Miserably, after establishing that Richie's injuries were not too serious, Static had picked up his partner from the rooftop and brought them back to home-base to recover, and to think.

"Rich?"

"Yeah, V?"

"Why d'you think he let us go like that? I mean, he could have had me there at the end," Virgil said without opening his eyes. He knew his best friend well enough to know that Richie had stopped and was looking in his direction, even without seeing the motion.

"Well, I have a couple of hypotheses. Given the length of the fight, the environmental conditions…"

"Short version, please?" Virgil interrupted.

"Well, my guess is he either got tired or it had something to do with the sun." That got Virgil's attention and he opened his eyes and squinted curiously across the room.

"The sun?"

"Something about the prismatic quality of his wings makes me think that he might actually use them to draw in solar energy, the way solar panels do, except in his case he either uses the energy himself or focuses it out through his hands," Richie said, a slightly distracted look on his face as he silently did the mental gymnastics that would support the logic of his theory. "The math works, anyway," he said, face clearing as he shrugged.

"So that's why he ran? Because it got late?" Virgil asked, gesturing to the encroaching darkness outside through their boarded-up windows.

"Could be."

They fell silent again for a few minutes, Richie working on un-melting his skates and restoring them to working order, Virgil enjoying the quiet and the lack of anybody trying to kill him for five minutes. Then another idea struck and he spoke again.

"What do you think about all that stuff he said? I mean about being a 'servant of God' and everything?" Virgil asked, propping himself up on his elbows.

"You mean besides the usual Bang-Baby-gone-crazy stuff?" Richie stopped and considered for a moment. "Well, he's either wacko, or it's an act. Those are usually the options when you're dealing with something like that. Unless…"

"What?"

"Well, he didn't seem completely insane, the God complex aside. But he really seemed like he meant what he was saying," Richie speculated.

"Yes? And?" Virgil had to restrain himself from zapping his best friend into completing a single thought all at once.

"Well, it's possible that all that stuff started as an act but he now believes it. You know, believing his own hype. Which is even more dangerous because it means that he was at one point stable but is becoming less-so now. And therefore he's even more unpredictable."

"Which is bad," Virgil nodded.

"Very."

"Typical." Virgil sighed and closed his eyes.

Silence fell again and Richie went back to work.

"Hey Rich?"

"I thought you were sleeping." This time, it was clear that Richie's patience was wearing thin, but he should have been used to the leaps and bounds of Virgil's thinking by now.

"Do you think Seraph is the one responsible for what happened at the coffee shop and the bookstore before that?" Virgil asked, sitting upright now.

"No…I don't think so," Richie hedged. "It just seems too different. The coffee shop and the bookstore were both really subtle attacks, even though there was fire involved. And I'd say that subtlety is not Seraph's strong-suit. Besides, if Seraph could do to people what was done at the bookstore, why wouldn't he use that ability on you? That was some serious power, to immobilize and blind people on the street, and if Seraph could do it, I'm sure he would have used it to 'cleanse' you. He just doesn't seem like a 'fair fight' type of guy to me. But he didn't, so logically, I don't think he can. It doesn't make sense otherwise, V."

"So you're telling me we're dealing with two different Bang Babies with wildly different powers and we don't know anything about them AND we might not be able to beat either of them?" Virgil said, flailing on the couch.

"Um…basically, yeah," Richie said absently, testing his skates which now appeared to work again.

"Rich?"

"Yes?"

"Sometimes I really hate you."

"I know, Virg."

--==OOO==--

The next day at school, Virgil tried not to think too hard about the fact that he had two new enemies to worry about. When his classes failed to keep his attention, he found his mind wandering idly to the discussion he had had with Richie before the attack. He could have kicked himself for managing to so thoroughly ignore the obvious stress his best friend had been suffering.

"I'm supposed to be his partner and friend, and I couldn't even see that something was really wrong, and why? Because I was scared? Is that it? Of Richie being gay?" Guiltily, Virgil had to admit to himself that Richie's sexuality was exactly why he had been ignoring him.

Virgil wished things were simple again, the way they had been before the first Big Bang, before puberty even. He remembered the scrawny blond kid who had come to school one day in second grade, fidgeting with his glasses and not daring to look at anyone. He had shied away from people, teachers and students alike, and had spent the first half of the year wrapped in his own little world in the back row. Then, sometime during January, everything had changed…

_It was a Friday afternoon when seven-year-old Virgil Hawkings rounded the school building at recess. He had been involved in a snow-ball fight and had been teased about having bad aim, so he left, remembering his father's advice to walk away rather than use violence to solve problems. As he headed back towards the school's doors, he heard what sounded like crying. Peeking over a snowdrift, he saw Richie sitting in the snow, head bent into the crook of his arm. _

"_Hey, are you okay?" Virgil asked, sitting down beside him. Richie looked up in alarm and made a move to bolt from the spot, but seemed to decide against it and settled back down into the snow._

"_Yeah, sure, I'm fine."_

"_No, you're not. What's wrong? Did somebody make fun of you?" Virgil asked kindly. _

"_No…no," Richie said, pushing his glasses up and shivering. "I just don't want to go home after school today."_

"_What do you mean?" Richie looked around like he wished he had said nothing, but he spoke on anyway._

"_My dad is going to be mad at me again, and I don't want him to be…mad," he said. _

"_Why would he be mad?" Virgil asked, concern starting to grow in the boy's mind. It was only the week before they had had an assembly about domestic violence against kids and Virgil suddenly remembered how still and silent Richie had been all day after that, even more than usual. His young brain put two and two together, and came up with five._

"_I ripped my coat, see?" the blond boy said, holding up a sleeve. Indeed, there was a long cut in the fabric from the elbow to the wrist. _

"_How'd that happen?" Virgil asked, impressed by the size of the tear._

"_I was trying to get away from the big boys and I ran into the fence."_

"_Oh." Virgil had his own trouble with the older boys in the school, especially those with siblings in gangs. Suddenly he had an inspiration, something that could help someone who obviously needed it. _

"_Hey, Richie? How about this? What if you come over to my house after school and we'll get my mom to fix your coat? She's great at that sort of thing, and if we ask her really nicely, she might help us out! And then you won't get in trouble!"_

"_You-you mean it?" Richie asked, incredulously. Unbeknownst to Virgil, it was the first time anyone had ever extended that much friendship to blond boy. His face flushed and he broke into a wide grin at Virgil's friendly smile. "Okay. And maybe you'll even show me your comic books, like you were telling everybody about yesterday? I've only ever seen a couple of them, but I really like them and…"_

"_You like comic books?" Virgil cried, delighted. Richie nodded and smiled eagerly. _

"_That's it, Richie, we're friends for life!" he declared, holding out a hand. Richie slapped it cautiously, a little fear behind his eyes but hope written in every line of his face. When they went back into the school building for afternoon classes together, both felt uniquely better without quite knowing why. And when Richie followed Virgil home and learned what the Hawkins family was like, he thought he had accidentally walked into heaven itself. That evening had passed so quickly they ended up having an impromptu sleep-over just so they could keep talking and laughing. Camaraderie came to them as easily as breathing, and in the space of a single night, they went from strangers to best friends._

"Friends for life," Virgil found himself remembering fondly. His prediction had come true: from that night on, as the trust between them grew and their commonalities and experiences drew them closer, they were inseparable for the next ten years. It was something that went way beyond being "best friends." The two of them fit together like puzzle pieces, completing the empty parts of each other. Even now, as Static and Gear, they still backed each other up and balanced each other's abilities. There was a "rightness" about their friendship that nothing either had ever known could equal, an ease in each other's company that went beyond the comfort of old friends.

"Until lately," Virgil thought ruefully to himself. "Then Richie came out to me and it got weird. It had never been weird before, but then it was. It took him being honest with me about his brain to make things right again." Considering, Virgil tried to pin down exactly why the weirdness had come into the picture.

"I guess it's kind of my fault. I mean, Richie didn't actually change anything; he didn't treat me any differently, and it's not like it's something I couldn't have noticed if I'd been paying attention anyway. But…I got weird. I didn't know how to cope. I felt like I didn't know who Richie was anymore but the truth is…the truth is…" Virgil felt a tremble go through his emotions, like when you hit the TV to make it work.

"The truth is that it made me wonder who I am. Not him. I always know Rich. It was myself I was afraid of, and who I am in relation to Richie. But I'm still me, and he's still him. And that's all that should matter. That's all I'm going to let matter." He nodded to himself, satisfied and at ease with himself, at least in theory, for the moment.

The rest of history class was a total wash-out.


	6. Blind Justice

Yeah…so… * ducks possible airborne pillows or other, sharper items * …I'm back. And I actually updated! See!

I am sorry about the long wait. There're lots of lousy excuses I could give, as well as one or two good ones, but I won't go into all that. Suffice it to say that I promised I would finish this fic and I will – I'm just not going to make any guarantees about precisely when that will be. However, I do have the whole thing in mind; it's just a question of actually doing the characters justice.

I owe a big huge thank you to everybody who believed in this fic, who reviewed it, and who challenged me to continue it. Everybody who made me want to continue this story – you're the reason inspiration came back to me, and I thereby dedicate the rest of the fic to you.

One thing I would like to clarify with this chapter is that this, like the previous Tim-centric section, begins well before the other events in the story. We're jumping around in the timeline, from the present with Gear and Static and their current difficulties, to the time right after the first Big Bang, and back and forth again. By the end of this chapter, we should be all caught up in the present, but until then, I wanted to make sure that everybody knew, in case it isn't evident, why things are playing out the way that they are here.

I still don't own Static Shock or any associated characters. That has not changed in my long hiatus, sadly enough. I only own Seraph and Tim, and anybody who wants to borrow them is welcome, but please get my permission first. I don't own "Forest Gump" either, in case you were not sure who owned the movie. Sadly, not me. This is not for profit, just for fun.

Now returning to your sporadically-scheduled programming…

* * *

School had been, as it always was now, an unmitigated disaster.

"_Freak!"_

"_Look at him! What kinda kid is he, anyway?"_

"_Think he's a Bang Baby?" "No way, they all get cool powers, not like him."_

"_Just give him room. You don't want whatever he's got or you could end up like that, too!"_

The words echoed in his mind as Tim shuffled down the sidewalk, bitterly biting the insides of his cheeks against the urge to react. He knew from long experience that showing fear or pain or any more weakness than usual would only make the taunting worse. But his active mind circled wildly with repressed fury and shame.

"They're just…horrible! How can they claim to be people of God, praying before games or wearing those crosses in class and still say those things to me? And how come mom decided to send me back to public school anyway? I know money's tight but…there must have been something we could have done!" Tim's heart ached for the private school which had accommodated his disabilities for so long. The small, expensive, religious school that his mother could no longer afford on a single salary in a crumbling economy. The worse it got in Dakota, the worse it got in Tim's life.

"Watch it, freak!" suddenly rang out from behind. Tim tried to turn, but one wheel of his walker caught in a crack in the concrete. As he struggled with it, he heard another voice shout, "Look out!" Without warning, he felt himself pulled from the side and upended. His glasses fell away and the world became a confusing muddle of colors and light and harsh laughter from somewhere. There was a moment when he felt airborne, and then a thump on something soft.

"Are you okay?" a breathless voice asked. Tim blinked, squinting and trying to reorient himself. "Sorry, betcha can't see without these, huh? I know I'm blind without mine." A hand pressed familiar glasses against his fingers.

"Yeah. What happened?" he asked as he donned the frames and took stock of the situation. He was sitting on the grass a few feet from the sidewalk, his walker beside him. Looking down the road, he could see the vanishing figures of one of the groups of punk kids who tended to flock together on their skateboards, regularly stampeding anybody not quick enough to dodge them.

"Well, I'd say you were nearly flat," came a wry response. Tim looked to his rescuer to see a blonde boy about his own age, maybe a year older, indeed sporting glasses of his own. "Jerks on wheels," he said disparagingly.

"Thanks. They'd've run me over if you hadn't grabbed me," Tim said gratefully.

"Don't worry about it. Us guys in glasses gotta stick together, right? You're new, aren't you? I think you've got a class in the science room the period before me. I'm Richie."

"Richie! Where'd you go, man?" called another voice.

"Over here, V!" Richie called back. "Just doin' my good dead for the day."

"Yeah. I'm new. And I'm Tim." His words came out both shy and a little bitter.

"And I'm Virgil. So what happened?" asked the dark-skinned boy who had rounded the corner, smiling expectantly.

"Oh, the usual. Saving the innocent bystander from the gang of thugs, you know," Richie said, winking.

"Yeah, you're a regular hero, Rich," Virgil said, a laugh behind his eyes.

"Somebody ought to do something about them," Tim gestured towards the disappearing group who had nearly taken out two girls several blocks down.

"Yeah…maybe somebody will," Virgil replied speculatively. Tim opened his mouth to ask what he meant, but Richie cleared his throat loudly.

"So you're okay, right? Need a hand?" he asked, turning back to Tim. The rescued boy was almost about to refuse – Tim hated that he needed so much help and avoided accepting it whenever possible – but something in Richie's friendly face decided him. It took Richie and Virgil just a moment between them to get him upright and safely leaning on his walker again.

"Got a ride home?" Virgil asked. "We'll walk with you if you want. There's a lot more idiots than those guys on the streets, and you may not always have some friendly neighborhood upper-classmen to back you up."

"No, I'm fine," Tim lied easily. In point of fact, he was stuck taking public transportation home, but he couldn't quite bring himself to ask any more of the two who had gone out of their way for him already. Being escorted home would be far more embarrassing than Tim was willing to endure. "My mom should be here in a minute."

"All right then," Richie smiled even as he glanced at his watch. "We'd hang with you, but we've got…homework to do, right V?"

"Yeah. Stay cool, Tim," Virgil waved.

As the two turned to head in the opposite direction, Tim sighed. He would have bet anything that neither Virgil nor Richie had any idea what it was like being so different and hated. But they had been kind, and he was grateful for it.

"God, please bless those two for the good work they do in the world. They are definitely your agents, I can tell, because they care about people. Please help them in all they do against the people who are not working in your name and by your will."

--==OOO==--

Several weeks later, Timothy once again remembered the kindness of the two who had gone out of their way to look after him when he was in need. They had joked about being heroes, but really, they had been heroes to Tim, especially Richie. And he could certainly use a hero's help right then!

"Here's your stop!" the young man laughed as she gave one final push.

"Run, Forest! Run!" shouted a girl as the door hissed shut behind him.

Tim stumbled forward, looking around bewilderedly as he braced himself on the walker. Why was he cursed to be the one who apparently screamed "helpless target!" to every less-than-angelic teenager in Dakota? This time it was on the bus that he'd been accosted, and it was only by virtue of the fact that the bus driver was large and apparently not deaf that had saved him from an actual beating by a group of at least six gang-banger-wanna-bes. However, that did not stop the ruthless teens from forcing Tim to miss his stop and instead "helping" him off the bus in a completely unfamiliar location several miles down the line. Now, as the afternoon was waning and the first shadows of dusk were beginning to creep, Tim felt his heart skip a beat.

"What am I going to do? How will I get home from here?" he moaned. He supposed he could stay right where he was and wait for another bus to pass, but what if it didn't? What if that was the last run of the day to…wherever he was? Some industrial part of the city that looked more abandoned than anything else. This was exactly the kind of place he knew he should avoid if he didn't want to end up a statistic.

"God, deliver me from evil," he whispered fervently. Craning his neck, Tim caught sight of the tip-top of a familiar building, one of the few in downtown that stuck up high enough to be seen from this far away. He was a pretty good distance from the parts of Dakota he knew, but at least he had an idea of which direction to go. Deciding to stick to main roads in the hope of another bus, Tim set off, praying every step of the way. There was nothing to do but begin the walk, and hope he ended it in one piece.

"Please let me get home safely. Please let these paths not lead me through shadow and danger. Please let there not be any Bang Babies around."

Sighing deeply, Tim felt himself grow cold inside again. He was a Bang Baby too, after all, much as he hated it. And, worse than being another kind of freak, unlike all the Babies who ended up on the news, he had no idea how to control his abilities. Tim knew, both from his experience with his mother and one other accident at a bookstore since then, that his gift was simple, yet miraculous: he possessed the power to take any physical state of his own, from his less-than-functional legs and poor eyesight to something as small as a paper-cut, and transfer it to another person, trading their good legs and eyes for his poor ones. He had caused his mother to fall, had caused a clerk to receive a cut from thin air, and had at the same time been free of those conditions himself. But the effect was temporary, a short-lived high. And then he was back to being Tim-the-crippled-kid.

"If I could make it happen whenever I wanted," he muttered bitterly, "none of those jerks would ever be able to mess with me again. I'd just fix myself off of one of them and run. Or I'd make them see what it's like to be a freak like me until they left me alone. I'd take God's justice for all those undesirables of the world, show the cruel what cruelty really is.

"But I can't. Somehow it never works when I try," he sighed again. His heart flushed with shame at the idea of taking revenge against someone, no matter how justified. "Maybe the point is that only God can decide when I can use this stupid power. I'm pretty weak; what if I used it for evil? So…I guess I'll have to trust that it's for the best this way. Whatever I can do, I guess it belongs to God instead of me."

"Oh, but it does belong to you," came a voice, deep and warm.

"Who's there?" Tim demanded, stopping in his tracks. He was between two large train-yards, divided by the main road, and there was no one in sight.

"You're…a loyal servant, aren't you? Speaking to God when you're alone in such a place? Trusting in God that all you can do must be part of a greater plan?"

"I…yes," Tim said hesitantly.

"Good. Perhaps, then, it is time for you to begin to learn what that plan is." There was a sudden burst of bright light, and then a figure appeared from seemingly nowhere. His face was starkly noble, and he carried himself with pride and grace. But it was his wings, oh, the gloriously beautiful wings that stood out against the now-setting sun alight with color and glowing from within that took Tim's breath away.

"Are…are you an angel?" he asked, longing in his voice. But even as he spoke the words, something in Tim's heart caught him. Even awed and cowed by the figure before him, he felt no wonder of God washing over him, sensed no holiness in the air. Before receiving an answer, he already knew the truth.

"Not of the heavens, but I am a creature of God's own making, as are you. Do you have a name?" he asked.

"I'm Tim."

"Timothy. A good name indeed. I am Seraph. And I can see that you are a believer. But are you a believer with the power to fulfill a call to God's service? Will you follow me and your God down a path of righteousness?"

Tim took a deep breath and tried to get his knees to stop shaking. He felt overwhelmed, confused. This was straight out of a dream, this encounter with a creation certainly wonderful if not abjectly sacred. And to be addressed so politely even on the heels of his mistreatment by his peers warmed and comforted him. For someone so lonely, basic kindness went a long way, and Seraph had already been more human to him than anyone since Richie and Virgil several weeks before. Tim's usual hesitancy and stubborn streak felt themselves melting before Seraph as snow in July as his defenses fell.

"I…I'm a Bang Baby," he admitted fearfully. "But I don't know how to control my powers."

"Indeed. Perhaps it is merely a question of the correct motivation, then. But I warn you, Timothy, that I will suffer no fools nor weak ones in my great work. Prove yourself to me, and I will permit you to join me. Fail to do so, and I will strike you down, for none can lay eyes upon me and tell of what they have seen."

"What? What kind of test is that?" Tim demanded in sudden fear. "Are we talking about the work of God's justice or are you talking about hurting people? Because I won't help you with hurting others! It's wrong!"

"Justice involves pain. You know this. Now, prove yourself to me and to your God!"

A heartbeat of silence passed, and then Seraph stepped forward. He moved slowly, deliberately, bearing down on the boy with absolute menace. Tim felt terror in his heart, the terror of years of bullying, the terror of years of helplessness, the terror of failure and of being unworthy. That fear gathered within him, turned into a hard, cold ball inside. Seraph reached for him, his hands glowing dangerously.

"No! Stay back! God, help me!"

There was a rushing in his ears and then a strangled cry. Tim opened his eyes cautiously, unaware that he had closed them in fear. His hand was outstretched, and he was standing completely unaided.

Seraph, meanwhile, had crumpled to his knees before the boy, and was breathing heavily. His wings drooped, as though the life had gone out of them, and the angelic face was twisted in agony.

"You…have a powerful gift," he gasped around his obvious pain. "You are more than worthy to serve your God. Now release me, for I see in your face that it is only fear that commands your powers. But fear is a betrayal of faith, for it is that which takes us from God, and you must overcome your own. Come. Together, you and I will master your talents and bring your gifts to serve in the name of our great and glorious God."

"I…I don't know," Tim hesitated. Something in his heart felt that things were not right, that Seraph was not what he seemed. But before he got any farther in his thinking, a familiar ache slammed back into his body as his legs once again became twisted and helpless. Born of long practice, he steadied himself against the walker while Seraph regained his feet beside him.

"Ah," the angel breathed, stretching out his wings gratefully and smiling with satisfaction as the light and strength returned to them. "Rare indeed is your gift, Timothy. And rarer still a heart willing to trust in God so completely. Here, let me relieve your fears. I will carry you home, and you may choose for yourself the path you will follow. And whatever you choose, you have earned my loyalty and respect by your faith."

Before Tim could say a word, he felt himself pressed against Seraph's chest, his strong arms holding Tim effortlessly. As the boy gripped his walker with all his strength, Seraph launched into the air. And Tim's heart soared.

Flight. It was…beyond any rush of joy or faith or wonder that he had ever known. This was glory, this was happiness, this was beauty and poetry and everything Tim had never found in his earth-bound existence. If it felt liberating to walk when he exercised his powers, it was pure and unadulterated ecstasy to feel himself wheeling through the sky. As the wind pressed against him, the warmth of Seraph's body beat back any chill that could have overtaken him. Numbly directing the angel to his house, Tim felt tears dribble down his cheeks. This was the freedom that had been denied him all his life.

When the rush ended, a shock more keen than any pain, Tim found himself agreeing to join with Seraph, to train with him, to learn from him. While the voice in his heart warned him to be careful of false gods, Tim instead harkened back to the feeling of flight, the pride in Seraph's face, the impressed smile he had earned, and the knowledge that he had been saved from a long and dangerous walk home.

"This must be God's will, for me to find him. Perhaps we will learn from each other. He's not an angel, but he could be. And…maybe he really does know God's will for me. So I'll leave it up to him to show me the way and we'll see where that takes me. This cannot be an accident or trial; this must be what is meant for me."

--==OOO==--

Months passed like days. Tim's mother noticed a change in her son, but one she could not quite identify. On the one hand, he seemed happier. He spoke now of a friend he called Sam who gave him a ride home every day after school, who evidentially wanted Tim to stay over at his house now and again and who was a true and faithful ally. The confidence Tim had always lacked appeared to be growing around the edges of his fear, and she was grateful for that. But on the other hand, Tim had become more withdrawn, unwilling to let his mother know exactly what he did with Sam all the time or where Sam lived. He never missed school or church, but his attitude towards both gradually changed. School had always been a difficult challenge, but now Tim looked upon it with distain at best, and church, which had always been a refuge, the highlight of both their lives, seemed to lose its meaning. But whenever she asked about it, Tim would give his mother one of his brightest smiles and assure her that all was well. She assumed it was just her little boy growing up, becoming a man with a man's thoughts, and she gave him time to sort it out, albeit with a mother's worry hovering in the background.

In a way, Tim knew, his mother was partially right. He was indeed on his way to becoming a man, but not, perhaps, the way she thought, for it was not only his spirit that was growing strong. Running with the ease of a gazelle, Tim ducked the chain-link fence that blocked the unused train cars from the public and made his way to the boxcar that had become his second home. And if the echo of a cry of pain from a random homeless man echoed in his ears, Tim comforted himself by dismissing his power as quickly as he could, dropping onto the couch at the end of the car with only a twinge of guilty relief.

"Today, Timothy, will be your first true test of yourself," Seraph said. "Today we begin God's work in earnest. You have proven yourself a fine student, and you have truly mastered your gifts. Now we must bring them to bear upon the world in full force."

"Yeah, but…I mean, I don't want to hurt somebody. You know that," he squirmed.

"You hurt no one with your powers. You merely remind them of the grace of God, of the blessing that is health and wholeness. For how can one appreciate the wonders of being able to walk freely unless that wonder is removed for a time?" Seraph eyed Tim meaningfully. "Now we take these lessons a step further. Not only will we remind others to be grateful for what God has given them, but we will also punish the wicked and the sinners for their crimes."

"But, Seraph, there's a difference between doing justice and, you know, punishing people. Punishing is for God to do, isn't it?" Tim pointed out, Bible verses flying through his head.

"We are simply offering a warning. Do we not discipline a child to keep them from the hot stove? The harm you do will frighten more than hurt, and it will perhaps be the saving of their souls. Is that not worth a few moments of…reflection?"

Tim sighed. Somehow, everything Seraph said always made sense. But a part of him was not quite comfortable with it, even though. Of course, they weren't talking about actually killing anybody. This was more like a spanking, really – a reminder of what sin could bring. Wasn't it?

"Towards this end, I have chosen as your target a truly evil den of selfishness and sin, a blot upon the city. And I believe even you, lamb that you are, will approve," and here Seraph snickered at his young apprentice. He had taken to calling Tim a lamb, since the boy was more timid and forgiving than was truly necessary in their work. Tim, for his part, didn't mind the comparison very much.

"What's that?"

"There is a bookstore at the corner of Elm and Fourth Street. Do you know it?"

Tim felt his chest grow suddenly tight and cold. Yes, he knew it. He knew it all too well. That store had provided his father with the books that had been the beginning of the end of everything Tim had cherished. That store, so proud of its own sin and viciousness, was one of the places Tim often prayed would be struck down by God's hand. And now, here, Seraph was encouraging him to be that very instrument of divine justice.

"Go, then. I see in your face that you know what you must do. And…take this with you," Seraph said, pushing a section of pipe, sealed on both ends, into his hands. "If your warning is not heeded, if your words are not heard and the pain of the patrons is not enough, this will be my hand, not yours, calling down the fire of God."

Without looking at it, Tim pushed the pipe carefully into a pocket. He didn't care that he knew full well what the pipe was and what it would do. Sodom and Gomorrah had suffered far worse than the effects of a simple, homemade firebomb. And he would indeed give the sinners a chance; he would give them all a chance first.

"I'll make them repent," he said, anger and pain and his father's face looming before his eyes. "One way or another, I'll make them repent."

--==OOO==--

From his perch above the bookstore which was now merrily burning to the ground, Seraph laughed. Tim had done so well, his powers extending even beyond the shop to the street, causing chaos and fear and panic. Oh, the boy had great potential, the perfect skills to help remake the city however Seraph wanted it!

"As long as I can keep our minds focused on God," and here a sort of giggle broke through as slightly-unhinged glee warmed him inside and out, "Dakota will become our own Eden, all people bowing to me, and I will be Adam and the serpent and the Tree of Life all in one. With Tim to weaken them, to force submission and understanding, and with my holiness to rule, the names of Seraph and God will be spoken with fear and awe by everyone!"

But a moment of clarity winked through his otherwise rejoicing mind, and Seraph quickly brought himself back under control. It would not do to spoil the boy's first triumph by getting caught, especially because the two so-called defenders of Dakota had put in an appearance. Seraph had worked so hard to stay out from under the eyes of Static and Gear, and he would reveal himself in his own time. For now, he retreated to the shadows and beat a hasty retreat. As he moved away, the angel scoffed as the pair rescued the sinners from their well-deserved justice.

"Today, only a few felt the flames of my wrath and justice, but next time, if I see Static or Gear, that will be a sign that they, too, are deserving of holy punishment, and I will know that the time has come for me to enter the city in truth, and to begin the fulfillment of my own destiny!"


	7. Analyses

Well, here we go again. Once more, everybody say it with me now, Static Shock is not mine. Seraph and Tim are. No money happens for this story or I promise it would have been done a lot faster! …Kidding – I'm kinda slow either way, which I think you all know by now, and I am eternally, eternally grateful that you put up with me. Anyway, getting back to the point here, this is just for my own entertainment, and apparently yours, too.

Thanks again to all of you who read and enjoy the story. This is all for you.

Enjoy!

* * *

Richie took a deep breath, then another, and then gave up. Rolling his eyes up into his head, he let his cranium crash down to the desk in despair.

"I hate the world…" he moaned, his voice muffled by the red cloth.

"Aw, come on, Rich! It's not that bad, is it? At least you got the pillow now!" Virgil said sympathetically.

Richie snorted. True, the recent gag-gift from his best friend was definitely coming in handy. After their honest conversation two weeks prior, Virgil had appeared in the AGSS one afternoon with a paper bag and a smile. Inside, a thick, square, bright red pillow with a bulls-eye pattern bore the words "Save A Keyboard – Bang Head Here." Virgil claimed it was to prevent any more dents in Gear's helmet that were non-combat related, but it had comforted Richie nonetheless. It meant Virg was back to his usual understanding and humor with regards to their friendship.

"Thanks, V. Very helpful. Extremely useful for producing a result on this," Richie replied, raising his un-bruised head to glare at his friend.

"That's what I'm here for! No, seriously, what's got your brains in a knot?"

Richie sighed as his mind worked to put together all the pieces that were so thoroughly driving him up the wall. Aside from the continued analysis of Reconstruction on a series of rural and urban centers in the American South, and not including the extremely annoying looped rendition of the "Who Loves the '80s?" CD mix, which he had unfortunately seen a commercial for three days prior and was still plaguing him, there were other, more pressing problems spinning him in circles. Round round in circles, like a record. _Ooh, stop that!_ he ordered his mind firmly_. Not funny. Totally not funny._

"If my brain were a person, I'd swear it was out to get me," he said. At his best friend's confused look, Richie waved it away. "Okay, so here's what I've got." Turning back to the computer, the genius brought up several different graphics on the screen. Virgil, using his powers to zap a chair into place from across the gas station, perched just behind Richie's shoulder to where he could see everything.

"I've been consolidating all the information I could find on either of our two new friends, Seraph and He-Who-Has-Not-Yet-Been-Named-Since-You-Let-Him-Get-Away…"

"Dude, can we just call him Baby X?" Virgil put in plaintively. Richie smirked.

"Yeah, whatever. So, Seraph and Baby X. Seraph, we have a lot of information on, given our encounter with him. I've got a good idea of what he can do, and I'm pretty sure he's kinda whacked. Since he doesn't appear to be running with any of the gangs, or with Alva, for that matter, it's going to be harder to pin down his motivation and anticipate his next attack, but I'll keep on it. In the meantime, short of looking under every rock in the city, our chances of actually finding Seraph before he finds us or causes any trouble are…pretty low, actually."

"Got total faith in you, bro."

"Thanks. Baby X, first of all, we don't even know if it's a Bang Baby. Could be a neuron-toxin, some kind of theta-wave generator, any number of drugs and gases, you get the idea. But, I think the assumption that he or she is a Bang Baby is a good one for a bunch of reasons. First of all, the sort of chemicals or devices that would produce a similar effect would have to be carefully controlled, handled by someone with in-depth knowledge, and even then, they should have worked on us when we arrived at the scene of the attack. Secondly, there was that kid you saw leaving the bookstore fire who was the only one moving, right? There are other reasons, but they…well, it has to do with math and probabilities, so just trust me on it, okay?"

"Whatever you say," Virgil grinned. Richie nodded and then moved a couple of graphics around on the screen. What had been a series of photos, first of Seraph and then of the scene at the bookstore, now showed a map of Dakota with the bookstore and coffee shop in red.

"This is where the two fires were." Richie pushed his glasses up to his nose thoughtfully. "Now, we don't know for sure that Seraph is connected at all to Baby X, or that Baby X is behind the fires. But the fact that both incidents involved the same accelerant-based pipe-bomb is suspicious. Add to that the witnesses from the café talked about experiencing something similar to what we saw at the bookshop and I'd say it's a pretty fair guess that the same kid is responsible for both fires. Now, when Seraph showed up at the second one, it didn't seem like he was just walking by, or maybe flying by is more accurate, and just randomly decided to make his move. It's just too much of a coincidence. So, the probability is strongly in favor of the idea that Baby X is responsible for both fires, and the things that happened to the people at each location, and that he or she is at least in some way connected to or in contact with Seraph."

"Makes sense."

"Okay. So, if we postulate that Baby X and Seraph are, in fact, working together, then we have a far greater chance of finding wherever they're hiding out." With a few quick keystrokes, a series of blue dots appeared on the screen. There were easily two or three dozen dots spread across a part of Dakota, but no obvious pattern to them. "These dots represent incidents of people reporting similar symptoms as what we saw in the bookstore fire: sudden blindness, pain or failure of the legs, and inexplicable loss of breathing."

"Dude, that's a ton of people!" Virgil exclaimed.

"The incidents go back almost to the night of the Big Bang itself, which is further evidence that Baby X is, in fact, a Bang Baby. But here's where it gets interesting."

Richie zoomed in on an area that Virgil immediately identified as being the neighborhood not far from their high school.

"The greatest percentage of reported incidents in the last month or so is right around here. Not only are they geographically close together, but they all seem to happen around the same time: approximately three in the afternoon. Of the remaining incidents, they are overwhelmingly timed between nine-thirty and ten-thirty in the evening, with no events taking place after eleven. Which suggests that whoever Baby X is, they have a pretty set schedule and routine."

"Sounds to me like somebody's got a curfew," Virgil nodded, smiling knowingly.

"Exactly." Richie leaned back, his brain running over all the numbers and possibilities again. The evidence was just too clear; the Bang Baby had to be someone who lived in the area, who couldn't be out late at night and who…

"Wait, you're saying whoever this is goes to our school?" his friend interrupted his thoughts with the sudden realization.

"Yep. Chalk another one up to our fine educational institution. Hey, at least this time he or she didn't drop out of school!"

"Stay cool, stay in school," Virgil recited. "So, in other words, we've gotta start keeping our eyes open for Baby X at school, and on patrol, and hope that we can find whoever it is in time to track Seraph down before he does any more damage."

Richie nodded wordlessly. Inside, his thoughts were tumbling over each other. This kid could be worse than Madelyn Spaulding ever was, he considered. Well, okay, maybe it's worse to lose control of yourself and have somebody invade your thoughts, but some of these medical reports show some pretty nasty stuff, too. People falling while in the middle of a crosswalk, others unable to see right as they got behind the wheel of their car, and the whole not breathing thing, it's remarkably bad. And talk about a weird sort of power! Why on earth would you end up gaining the ability to make other people not walk or see or breathe? But to this, while his brain could helpfully provide dozens of possible explanations, none of them seemed any more plausible than the others. Richie fell deep into the possibilities, looking for anything that might stick out.

"Hey, wake up!"

"Wha…?" Breaking out of his reverie, Richie might possibly have lost his balance on his work-stool except for the quick hands that held him steady. "Oh. Sorry. Got caught thinking."

"Yeah, I noticed that. How's…all that going, anyway?" Virgil's voice was quiet, and the genuine concern with which he asked his friend warmed Richie's very heart.

"Well, better than it was, I guess," was the honest reply. "I think…ever since we talked, anyway, it's like we called a truce in there. I still feel like my brain is pulling me in a thousand different directions all at once, and they're still annoyingly random directions, but it isn't as overwhelming as it was. I can block a lot more of it out now. So that's something, anyway."

"Yeah," the teen who was Static breathed. After a moment, he continued, "I've been thinking about what you said. Before, you know. And…well, I've got an idea about it."

"Yeah?" Richie urged his friend. Virgil was surprisingly reluctant to speak, uncommonly so. He had left one hand on Richie's shoulder after balancing the distracted hero, and that hand, while comforting, seemed tense. Richie knew Virgil better than anybody, and he always knew when something was up with his best friend.

"Yeah. Well, you've read the psychology section of the library right?" he joked. At Richie's serious nod, Virgil grinned and continued, "Of course you did. Why am I not surprised?"

"So, what's your idea?" A tiny surge of hope in Richie's heart at the idea that Virgil might have something to help only resulted in his internal soundtrack switching to "Living on a Prayer." What a help. His brain was useful on the level of the little paperclip in Microsoft Word, but without the unintentionally hilarious timing.

"Well, I was just thinking about how you're different from the geniuses that go crazy. Not that you're gonna go crazy!" he waved hurriedly. "But, I mean, you know the stats better than me. It's a lot more common to be a genius and crazy than a genius and not. But you're not, and you're not gonna go crazy," and this time Virgil's voice was so solid and sure Richie breathed out in relief, as though his friend's certainty made it true.

"You're right that I'd be in the minority that way," he said slowly.

"But you're different, and you can be more different. I'm no psychologist, but I know that emotional states influence the mind and vice versa. So maybe what we should do is focus on something besides your brain to make it easier for your brain to focus. You know?"

Riche tilted his head to one side and considered. There was significant merit to Virgil's point. In fact, all science aside, his own experienced proved out the hypothesis – his thoughts had been much less chaotic ever since he had unburdened himself not long before. And, indeed, when he had admitted some of those fears to himself, his mind had been entirely his own, not the independent thing it seemed to be the rest of the time. But he would be looking for much bigger issues if they were the root of his deteriorating control.

A sudden flash in his mind sent Richie to the depths of his thoughts and back in a flash. Images played through him like a DVD at 32x, none of which were pleasant. There was the memory of his father, some years prior, angry over the usual nothing and taking it out on his boy. The night not even long before when he had woken up from that suffocating nightmare at Virgil's house. A dozen battles, even after he had become Gear, when he hadn't been able to help, had been outmatched or isolated and rendered ineffective. Deep-seated aches from a multiple sources that were based in the bedrock of his character seemed to break out all over his heart, and Richie suddenly started to wonder how much analysis and repair was going to be needed. It felt like a pretty big job, and his optimism faded. But he tried to push aside the sense that it was more than he could manage and looked back to his friend.

"Okay, so if we assume that you're right, then what we really have to do is locate the root of some of the emotional factors that are unbalancing my internal equilibrium and resolve them." Richie smiled tightly at his friend. "Sounds like more work cut out for me. Nice assignment, Virg."

"Well, I'll help if I can…oh!" He smacked his forehead hard enough that a spark flew. "Assignment! Totally forgot! English paper due tomorrow!"

"You're right. Want help?" Richie offered. While Virgil was incredibly adept at science and math, the liberal arts didn't hold his interest very well.

"From Mr Great Brain himself? Sure!" They shared a grin as Richie expertly cleared his screen of everything not homework-related, keeping most of the work in his mind anyway, and the pair bent their heads over Virgil's copy of "Young Goodman Brown" to see if they could produce a paper that did not, for once, include any inside jokes.

--==OOO==--

"Got an A minus. Not bad," Virgil handed the paper to Richie a week later.

"What didn't she like?"

"The part about 'prithee offer this gentle writer a benevolent mark, Goody Smith.'" Virgil snickered.

"Dude! You didn't actually write that, did you?" he tried not to laugh.

"I might have slipped it into the footnotes." His infectious grin, totally wide-eyed in innocence, ended in both of them giggling.

"Hey guys!"

"Daisy! What's up?" Virgil called, waving her over to their corner of the hallway.

"I hate to do this, but Richie, could you do me a favor?" Daisy had a pile of books in her arms and a slightly harried look to her.

"Sure. What do you need?"

"There's a kid I'm helping tutor, but I completely forgot I've got a dentist appointment today. He's smart, just behind, since he's a new student. Would you work with him this afternoon?"

Richie and Virgil exchanged a momentary glance. They had plenty of work to do as Gear and Static to deal with Seraph and Baby X, but it could probably wait one evening. There was no warning or hesitation in the look Virgil shot him, so Richie shrugged. "Sure."

"Okay. He'll be in 203 in about ten minutes. His name's Tim. Here," and she dumped the load of books into his arms, "you'll need these."

"Oof! Thanks," he replied as he tried not to drop a mountain of paper all over himself. One small one slid down the side and was about to slip out from the crook of his arm, but Virgil caught it and settled it on top. "Why so many books?"

"He's smart, but his school before didn't have as wide a curriculum, so he's behind in a bunch of different things. I'd have asked Virgil," and here she wrinkled her nose teasingly, "but I heard he might not be the best one to handle impressionable minds and English assignments."

"Hey!"

"Thanks again, Richie," Daisy said, ignoring the indignant look on Virgil's face. "I really appreciate it."

"Don't sweat it." As she dashed off, Riche looked ruefully at his best friend. "Wanna come?"

"With that load? No thanks. But I'll catch up with you later, bro." They managed a fist-bump only due to Richie precisely calculating how long he could balance the pile on one arm, then separated, Virgil towards the lockers and Richie back upstairs. It took him a few minutes to navigate the swarm of students without losing his load on the way to the classroom. He thought at first that 203 was empty, but heard a quiet scrape when he entered.

"It's you!"

Richie met the eyes of the student he had "rescued" on the sidewalk some weeks before. Tim was nothing if not memorable. He smiled encouragingly.

"Yup, me. Daisy says she's really sorry but she had to run to the dentist, so she asked me to fill in. I hope you don't mind." Richie gratefully set down the pile, nimbly saved the two books that attempted a daring escape, and sat down across from Tim.

"No, whatever works, I guess."

--==OOO==--

Two weeks later, Richie entered 203 with the usual stack of books, plus a tin crowning the pile.

"How's it hanging?" he called. From their usual table, Tim turned and smiled. Though it had only been intended as a temporary stop-gap for Daisy, Richie and Tim had struck up a good friendship, and the genius had taken over the tutoring on a more regular basis. Tim was really a good guy, Richie had quickly learned, just beat down by the world for being different. Though he never admitted as much, he sure understood it! And, in an odd sort of way, Tim could be as helpless and yet as helpful as Richie himself feared he was as Gear to Static. It was a good thing for both of them, and they knew it.

"Okay. You were right about bio," Tim answered, carefully unloading his friend's arms and looking curiously at the tin. "Definitely more up my alley than physics."

"Don't ever let Virgil catch you saying I said that, 'cause he'd have my head. But not all of us are meant for the path of the mad scientist," Richie smiled, privately hiding several different meanings and jokes in that one sentence. "But, speaking of which, this is from V's family. His sister baked 'em, but I tried one and they won't kill you."

"They sent me cookies?" Tim's brow furrowed in confusion even as a shy color rose in his cheeks.

"Sure. V's told them about you and about how I'm working with you and you're new here, and…well, it's just the kind of people they are, you know?"

"Yeah," Tim breathed. Somehow, Richie wasn't sure he did know about people like the Hawkins family. From everything the kid had said, his mom was okay, but the rest of the world had been particularly harsh. Richie could sympathize.

"You know, you ever want me to bring you around, introduce you, I could do that," he offered suddenly. Though Richie generally ran with a particular crowd, he had friends all over the school demographics, and he knew a couple of other shy, smart types that would give this outcast a place.

"No, that's okay. I'm fine," and here Tim smiled with a tinge of confidence. "I do have other friends, and as I'm getting caught up the whole school thing isn't so bad. I've got, you know, stuff to keep me busy."

"I know how that goes." So far, hanging with Tim hadn't cut into his work as Gear, but the last weeks had been quiet. If he ever got that particular pinging ringtone, the signal his phone was programmed to receive from Backpack in the case of an emergency, he'd have to come up with a cover and fast. "Still, nice to spread yourself out sometimes. At least have somebody to talk to."

"Yeah," was the noncommittal answer Richie had taken to associating with his friend not being entirely convinced. Then, after a minute of quiet munching on Sharon's cookies, "Richie?"

"Yeah?"

"I…can I ask you something weird?" Richie turned to see Tim not meeting his eyes, looking intently at the stack of books between them.

"'Sure."

"You ever wonder if you're really doing the right thing, when it's the right thing but it isn't?"

"Back up, man. Do you mean doing the right thing for the wrong reasons? Or doing the right thing in a way that doesn't feel right?" Richie leaned in, interested. This kid was nice and smart, but he had sensed there was a lot of turmoil under there, easily understood given his probable history in the world of punks and the cruel society of high school. He'd spent two weeks trying to get him to open up – at last it seemed to be paying off.

"That, exactly. Like, well, you know I'm…into faith, right?" At the encouraging nod, Tim continued. "Well, faith has a lot of rules about how you do some things. I mean, I'm supposed to be a good person, a servant to the Lord, you know? But what if the service doesn't feel right, even if it's right?"

"Tim, are you okay?" Richie asked. His mind was rapidly processing the question, but he was more concerned with the hesitance in Tim's voice.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I just, well, there's something I have to do. And it is right, I believe it is, but something about it doesn't feel right, you know?"

While Tim fidgeted with a cookie, Richie let his mind speed up, piecing together everything he knew about Tim, everything that he might be referencing. When he'd taken on the tutoring, he'd also done some quiet research, just to get a sense for the kid, so he had no shortage of facts. But there was something familiar, and ominous, in what Tim had said. In fact, it reminded him of something Virgil had been talking about right before the Bang, about having to deal with that gang. The genius considered Tim, thinking of how much bullying the kid probably experienced, and decided that was a plausible hypothesis.

"Well," he said slowly, trying to keep any kind of urging inflection out of his voice, knowing it would only scare Tim off, "since I don't know what you have to do, I can't be specific, but in general, they say that trusting your gut is a good way to go. We all have instincts for a reason, and if we're doing something contrary to those instincts, that's usually a signal that something is off."

"Yeah, but…" Tim looked up, accidentally breaking the cookie in his hand, "everything I know says it is right, so why doesn't it feel right?"

"Maybe it's the way you're going about it?" Richie asked. "Like, if you're supposed to give your mom flowers for her birthday, but you steal them from the store, you did the right thing by doing the wrong thing. There's lots of ways to do good, and there's lots of bad ways to do right."

"I guess that's true."

"And remember," Richie said, encouraged at the thoughtfulness his friend was showing, "maybe you don't have to do whatever you think you have to do. Maybe you aren't even supposed to."

"Not supposed to?"

"Yeah. Maybe you only think you have to because it seems like it's easy or smarter or something, but really, if you think about it, you can get what you're looking for by doing something else." The image of Tim trying to make good with the punks who regularly tormented him flashed through his mind, and though he found it unlikely, Richie decided to give one more push. "Only you can decide what you really have to do, what really makes sense for you. Don't let anybody tell you different. It's hard, but being who you are for your own reasons is the best thing there is."

--==OOO==--

Later that night, as Richie was finishing his homework, he sighed and stared into space for a moment.

"It's hard, but being who you are for your own reasons is the best thing there is."

The words played back in his mind, under all his other thoughts, picking moments to rise again and sound back at him. Richie's brain had already taken the sentiment and compared it to a dozen similar quotes from famous people, from Eleanor Roosevelt to Aristotle, but they always came back as he had spoken them to Tim.

_I hope that meant something to him. It did seem to cheer him up, anyway. And he seemed a little happier going home, too. I hope Tim isn't in any real trouble. I'm not sure how exactly he could get in too much trouble, all things considered, but still. Maybe I'd better keep a closer eye out for him. Besides, even if it's no more than the usual, he's getting bullied, and I should probably see if I can do something about it. I'm not a hero for nothing, after all. It's a good thing I'm so immeasurably cool, or I'd probably have the same problem!_

Richie snorted at himself, shaking his head. Still, what he'd said to Tim, about being who he really was, that hit home. Because since talking to Virgil, the genius had realized that his greatest struggle wasn't his run-away brain. It wasn't trying to be a superhero, a high school student, and gay all at the same time. It was being all those things, and accepting them. It was being those things willingly, eagerly, without being sorry for what they meant. All of his fears, his perceived weaknesses, they all stemmed from the facets of himself that he didn't like, didn't want, didn't appreciate. Everything that made him cringe internally was probably weakening his mind, and if he let them go on weakening him, it was very likely his mind would break – it was, for all its speed and vast intelligence, quite fragile that way. As he'd said to Virgil, he had to deal with the emotional factors that were impacting him. And chief among these was the simplest of all – being comfortable in his own skin, and with the consequences of what that meant.

"If it's going to take a complete reinstall of my self-perceptions and a refit of my internal sensors to just about everything to keep me from going insane," he muttered aloud, "this might take a while." He sighed heavily. It was a dire prognosis, considering how much there was to do, but probably the right diagnosis all the same.

"Gear?" the Shock Vox crackled to life. Richie banished as much as he could of the introspection that was taking up his consciousness and picked up the gadget, trying to shift his voice into neutral.

"I'm on. What's happening?"

"You up for a run?" There was a note in Static's voice that Richie knew all too well. It was the I'm-not-asking-for-back-up-but-I'd-sure-like-a-hand-here tone. _Definitely no time for internal repairs right now_, he thought as he stood up and started to tug at his sweatshirt, moving towards the bag that held his uniform.

"On my way, bro."


	8. Face to Face

So, first of all, an apology. I truly never meant to leave this sitting so long. I have learned that all my writing tends to reflect actual events or emotional upheavals in my own life. So when the stuff that inspired this story got somewhat resolved, the fire in me to complete it went out. However, I came back to it a few months ago and found that there was more than one story here, more than one thread to follow, and sticking with it I have at last finished it. I'll be posting it a chapter at a time just so I can do some last editing, but the story's done. You'll have it all in a matter of weeks.

Secondly, a thank you. A lot of people read this story early on and loved it, and many of you came back again and again to plead for updates. The fact that you subscribed and commented and everything kept me from ever forgetting that this story meant something to people. In the end, I didn't finish this for myself or because I was inspired, but because I wouldn't, couldn't let you readers down. Every word from here on out, this is for everyone who ever favorited or left a review or set an alert.

Thirdly, as always, I don't own these guys. Sad but true. But honestly? I'm not really worthy of them. Oh well. I also don't own Batman, Harry Potter, or anything else that gets referenced here. Just sayin'.

Again, I am humbly sorry for the long wait. I hope this proves worth it to you.

Enjoy!

* * *

Static patrolled Dakota with a fair bit of restlessness nagging at him, as it had been every night for the last week or two, really. It wasn't anybody's fault exactly. It was just that, with Richie now tutoring that friend of his, plus doing all his usual tinkering, plus, you know, homework, his partner-in-crime-fighting had taken a little break from hero-ing to the same extent. He knew Gear would back him up if he was needed, but he also sort of figured maybe his friend needed the space. After everything else, he couldn't blame Richie for wanting an extra hour or two to himself every day, especially when he took that time to help himself with his fragile control.

Focusing on improving the chaos in Richie's ridiculously enhanced brain was starting to have an impact, he could tell. Richie didn't always seem like he was walking around in a busy fog, and sometimes he even left off the constant pondering and relaxed. Virgil wouldn't trade his best friend for anything, but sometimes he remembered the old Richie, the pre-Bang-Baby Richie who was a normal kid and could get low grades and be bored and do something mindless and sometimes forgot things. That Richie might not have had a brain the size of Texas, but he'd seemed happier.

But now that they were starting to work on Richie's feelings (and may Sharon never find out how much girly talk he and Rich had been doing lately in the attempt), he was more at ease, though not a whole lot had changed yet. On the plus side, they'd stumbled onto an unbelievable stop-gap measure that at least took the edge off the pressure of 300 IQ points of genius. Of all things, eating a ton of heavy food tended to slow Richie's mind down for a while, like his brain went quiet trying to figure out what to do with all the sleepy-making contents of his stomach. Richie had stressed himself to the point of resembling a stick figure lately, so chowing down on whatever they could find wasn't the end of the world yet. And it wasn't like Virgil would say no to joining him for a double burger with onion rings and the biggest malt this side of Gotham.

"And anything that helps is okay by me," Virgil thought to himself, swooping low over the park. "But if he comes out weighing 200 pounds I'm gonna have to make him take over the patrols for a while."

He grinned a bit at that. Richie on solo patrol always made him pretty proud, and usually highly amused. After all, Richie didn't have super powers or ridiculous strength or even a suitably dramatic outfit. When Gear was in the sky, the baddies tended to think they'd have it easy since he wasn't a "real" superhero. And then when they were neatly trussed up and hadn't even seen him coming, when they were watching their eyes roll around in their skulls because Gear had so badly outmaneuvered them, when they had been somehow manipulated into confess not just one night's work but the last six months of wrong-doing all captured on video that was helpfully labeled and left for the police, they didn't scoff. Gear wasn't a hero like Static, but being different didn't make him any less of a hero.

He was still snickering at a particularly excellent memory of a huge mountain of a guy crying like a baby while Gear calmly rattled off all the promises he'd made to his mother and subsequently broken (and how Richie had known about it Virgil would never even be able to guess – something about a Mother's Day clip on YouTube maybe?) when something caught his eye below.

Dipping close to a nearby rooftop, Static found himself not just launching forward, but creeping carefully. Something in the posture of the figure before him suggested that he might want to watch and see how things were playing out before he made his move. But that didn't stop him from clicking on the Shock Vox and calling Richie. Even if he didn't know what was going down yet, he'd want Gear in on this one.

Because that was definitely Seraph down there, crouching at the edge of a low roof, looking over the street below.

"So much for the 'he uses solar power' thing," he thought to himself, slipping a little closer.

"You've done so well so far," Seraph's voice, soft but intense, surprised Static almost into an attack before he realized the Bang Baby was speaking into a cell phone. "I know you suffer trepidation that this is not the right course, but I assure you, our God wishes for nothing but the Truth to be revealed to all. How better to reveal His glory and righteousness than by striking those who do Him injustice?"

"You are SO crazy, dude," Static thought to himself. He adjusted his position so that he could keep listening to the conversation, but was out of direct line-of-sight.

"No, there is no danger to innocent believers," Seraph continued. "The building should be well emptied of all those we would seek to protect. We shall harm no one with this. We are merely the messengers of God upon His people."

Static checked his watch. If the usual timing held right, he had another 6 or 7 minutes before Richie finished getting into his costume and made it to his location. Not that he had given Richie a location; he knew that either his ridiculous intellect would figure it out or, more simply, Backpack would just track him using his phone or the Shock Vox or something.

"Have no fear for your safety either. Nothing will happen until I will it."

"What exactly are you doing?" Static wondered, daring to lean out a bit from the shadows. He looked not at Seraph, but in the direction Seraph was looking. The street below was mostly deserted, but one lone figure on a cell phone was mounting the steps of the convention center. He walked with his shoulders hunched under the weight of a sturdy backpack and his head was down. Something about him, even from this distance, felt familiar. Like Static, or Virgil, had seen him before.

"Enough. You must make no more room for doubt in your heart, Timothy. Now do as our God has commanded. You will find the convention center's front door unlocked."

Timothy? Static considered, running through Bang Babies, but none of them were named Timothy. Then he started running through classmates. There was T-Jam, the basketball player. No, way too tall. There was that quiet guy in his math class…was his name Timothy? No, he was Ted. What about an underclassman? And then it hit.

"But that makes no sense," he snorted. "The only Tim I know that fits his size and weight is the one who can't walk without a walker."

"Anyway," he shook himself from his thoughts. "If they're breaking into the convention center, there's no way I can let them do that. Time to get going!"

As the adrenaline washed through him, Static moved quietly from his vantage point so he could come up fully behind Seraph and get the true extent of surprise. He was practically on top of the angelic-looking but definitely not angelically-minded Bang Baby before he crossed his arms and smirked.

"Now, I know you're all God-fearing and such, but do you think you can summon up enough humility to fear me, too?"

Seraph whirled around in alarm and immediately brought up his hands.

"You! You will NOT interfere in our great work!"

"No, see, I think I will have to interfere. It's kinda my thing."

And then the fight got started.

-==OOO==-

In retrospect, Static should have seen the whole thing coming. He didn't need Gear's immeasurable intelligence to be observant, and it wasn't as if he hadn't been a successful hero in his own right for a long while now. Static's instincts had always been top-notch, and he had a knack for knowing how the bad guys thought – too many bad movies, Richie always said. He'd be kicking himself later for missing it.

If they survived that long.

For a while, things had been going pretty well, actually. Static had tried to zap Seraph to pin him in place, Seraph launched himself off the building to dodge. He'd opened his wings just long enough to glide to the ground before landing easily as a cat. Static had charged ahead, noticing as he went that Seraph was using his power sparingly. Maybe Rich'd been right and there was a solar component to his energy sources.

They'd danced and weaved in the deserted street for a few minutes, Static not quite able to catch Seraph, who deflected his electromagnetic blasts with his own sparse bursts. It was one of the most polite fights of Static's career, since Seraph didn't seem able or willing to unleash all his powers; therefore, the street took a lot less damage than usual.

Then Gear had arrived and it had gotten somewhat more fun.

"It matters not if there are two or two hundred! You will never bring down a servant of God!"

"Um, since we're almost beating you just ourselves, I think two hundred might be overkill, bro," Static laughed, weaving easily to the side of a punch Seraph had thrown.

"I don't know about that," Gear had returned. "You and me for Seraph, the other 198 for his ego!"

"God will crush you for your insolence!"

"Which one of us just knocked over the bench with the sign for the church down the block on it?" Gear asked.

"Um, that would be 'Sirrah' down there," Static grinned.

"Sheriff?"

"Set-Bath?"

"I am SERAPH!" he had bellowed.

"Oh, right," Gear had winked. "Skin-Graft."

They'd egged him on for several minutes, trading insults and jibes. And the truth was that neither of them had really been giving the fight their all – since Seraph was basically grounded and not trying to blast them to smithereens with every flick of his fist, the fight just didn't seem like a challenge.

Way too late Static remembered there'd been another person on the street.

It was almost impossible to say how it happened. One minute Gear and Static were both hovering a yard or so above the asphalt, carefully avoiding Seraph's half-hearted attacks. The next, both were flat on the ground, fighting to breathe.

"You see? God strikes those who thwart His will!" Seraph crowed as he came up.

"Stat…" Gear tried, rasping and clutching his fists to his chest in a near-panic.

"I can't…" Static's mind flashed to a day he'd spent as Virgil at his dad's center the previous summer. There was a kid there who sometimes had trouble breathing if he got worked up, and after a basketball game he'd collapsed, dragging in air and trying not to hyperventilate. He'd later described it as feeling like there was a foot on his throat and his chest pushing down, burning, and that every breath he took hurt as much as it helped. Static fought the instinct to gasp and tried to breathe slowly, evenly.

"What you have failed to comprehend," Seraph loomed right in Static's face, "is that I am quite literally on the side of the angels. What power is yours against the will and might of God?" He waved an arm and gestured. The form Static had spotted on the street earlier shuffled near.

"It is done," said a familiar voice.

Next to Static, Gear gasped in surprise, then choked on it. Virgil wanted so badly to reach out for his friend, to somehow tell him not to panic, that fighting made it worse, but he couldn't. He could only hope that information was already somewhere in Richie's big brain and that he'd have the ability to go find it.

"Timothy, look at the evil ones and know that your gift is truly God-given," Seraph said, drawing the boy nearer. "God would not permit you to punish any who did not rightly deserve it. But here you stand, unhindered by your weakness, and our enemies are fallen. It is a miracle, a miracle that proves our righteousness."

Static could feel his eyes widening as he got a better look at the kid. It was definitely Tim, but somehow he carried himself as if he had never needed a walker, as if he had never been less than a healthy, whole teenager.

"Tim…" Gear began. But his voice was dry and hollow and he could not manage more.

"How do you know my name?"

"Trade your focus, Timothy," Seraph ordered. "Let us see what he would dare say to us."

There was a strange, almost inexplicable feeling that washed over Static, like he'd just passed through a cloud. When it was over, he felt no change, but it had given him a moment in which to gather himself, and so he redoubled his efforts to keep his breathing shallow and slow. But to his amazement, after Tim shook once and seemed to falter, Gear sat up, his breathing entirely normal. Then he cried out in surprise.

"Well done, Timothy," Seraph said. Then he loomed over Gear, grabbing his helmet in one big hand and jerking his head up. "And blind you shall remain until we wish it otherwise. Now speak."

Static wanted to do something, anything, to help, but his whole battle was against his breathing; there was no room to move or jump up without risking everything. He saw Richie bring himself visibly under control, though he knew his best friend should be pretty freaked to be suddenly struck blind. But when Gear spoke, his voice was even and focused.

"Tim…you're a Bang Baby, aren't you?"

"He is a chosen vessel for the glory of God!" Seraph snarled, and his fist impacted the side of Gear's visor. Gear rocked from the blow, completely and totally unprepared, but sat himself back up a moment later.

"It's not real blindness. It's your eyesight. You project your physical limitations onto other people. Static isn't hurt, but he's suffering your asthma. And if I tried to stand up right now, I bet my legs wouldn't work. It was never Seraph. I knew it. It was always you doing this to people."

There was something cold and sad in Richie's voice and Virgil would have winced if he'd had the energy. He did, however, spare a thought for wondering why Gear was talking so much. Monologuing was something they usually left to the bad guys. Unless Richie was waiting for him to do something…

"It's not…it's harmless," came Tim's voice, wavering only slightly. "It just gives me a chance to do God's will unencumbered. That's all. It is a punishment for you, but it won't hurt you."

"When I got here, Backpack picked up a signal. There's a bomb in the convention center, isn't there?"

"Of course!" Seraph laughed. "We shall rain fire down upon those who are wicked, those who are sinners. We shall show them the error of their ways. It is our great work in His name."

"But we're not setting it off when there's people there," Tim put in quickly. "It's just a message."

"And who decides what that message is and who needs to receive it?" Gear demanded.

"The Word of God is absolute!" Seraph spat. "Question it again at your own peril."

"Listen to me, Tim," Gear moved as if he would get up, then wobbled dangerously and plopped back to the ground. "You sound like a good kid. I'm willing to bet you think you're doing the right thing. But you can't do the right thing the wrong way. You can't do something right by doing something even worse. The ends can't justify the means, Tim. You've got to know that!"

"The path God asks us to walk is not easy," Seraph said, and Static watched him turn his attention to Tim. "Do not let such unbelievers turn your mind. You know well what our task entails. I know you are brave enough to be called to this path of war against those who would bring evil into our world."

Virgil realized all at once that Seraph was nervous. Not sweating-and-fidgeting nervous, but nervous. He wondered suddenly exactly how much influence he had over the kid, and if it was enough.

"No! I know you don't believe that!" Gear countered. Seraph raised his arm and hit Gear again, hard, enough so that the hero tumbled backwards and sprawled against the curb, legs almost totally limp and flailing like a rag doll.

Protective fury burned through him and then Static wondered what exactly he was doing. Or wasn't doing, to be specific. Yes, he couldn't breathe, but Gear had just told him exactly WHY he couldn't breathe. Tim was the Bang Baby behind it. If he could distract Tim, get him to drop his powers, even for a minute, this whole thing could be over. And he was just lying there like a loser tied to some train tracks. Totally not his style!

And nobody hurt his best friend. Not ever.

He'd only get one shot at this. Static gathered himself, grateful that neither Tim nor Seraph were experienced enough to know how to really shut him down. No water, and Tim hadn't thought to take his sight either – if he'd been blinded like Gear, he couldn't have done this without running the risk of frying everything on the block.

Static breathed in once, long and slow, as Seraph stepped over him and stalked towards the unmoving Gear.

And a bolt of pure, furious, brilliant electricity flashed from Static to Tim and threw the kid hard away from where he stood over Static, pinning him with his face to the wall of the opposite building.

"Timothy!" Seraph raced back.

But the damage was done. As soon as Static had surprised Tim and completely broken his line-of-sight, he felt the constriction in his chest and throat vanish as though it had never been. He wasn't going to give the kid a chance to hit him again without getting something accomplished, so he jumped to his feet and drew his board to him.

"I think we've had enough of your help for one night," Static practically growled. He reached out and his powers caught a nearby street-sign that had been broken off in the earlier fight. It was simple to coil the metal around Seraph's broad torso, pinning his arms to his sides. That done, he blurred across the street and dropped to where Gear was stirring.

"Gear? You okay bro? Come on, say something so I know he didn't scramble your brains."

"Static, the rush at the theater for the last Harry Potter movie was worse than that," he shook his head and pushed himself to his feet. "Give me a little credit, man!"

Virgil fought a smile. Heroes shouldn't grin like a maniac even when their best friends were okay.

"What are we going to do with them?" he asked instead.

Gear handed Static one of his second-edition Zap Caps. "You go make sure burly and big-mouthed over there isn't going anywhere. I'll…I'll see about Tim."

"You sure?"

Gear nodded and started moving towards the wall of the convention center where Tim still hung, pinned. Static watched him nervously, but his partner was doing a good job of staying away from Tim's face. Probably Tim could do his thing to people only if he knew where they were. That was the hope, anyway.

Something in Richie's face told Virgil that his friend wanted to try to talk to the kid a bit before everything got all messed up with the cops and everything else, so he decided to give them a minute. Almost lazily he walked back towards where Seraph was wiggling against the street-sign. Between grunts of effort he was maintaining a running litany of insults and lofty statements about the "great and unforsakeable will of God." It was annoying.

"Look, just give it up," he sighed. "You're finished. We win. You lose. Can't you just…stop it?"

To his surprise, Seraph stopped entirely and sat down on the ground. Then he grinned a little maniacally.

"The will of God is absolute. I told you that. You have dared to thwart me. Now you will see the holy fire of God!"

Too late Static remembered that Tim had planted a bomb. Too late he saw that Seraph had wiggled until he'd been able to reach his back pocket. Too late he realized that Richie was a yard from the very building, and Tim was pinned to it. He lashed out with all his power, but too late.

Seraph pushed the button. The convention center exploded.

Static instinctively pulled his power around him like a shield and withstood the blast. But even before the smoke had cleared, he was moving. He forgot about Seraph. He just ran at the fire and rubble and the collapsed stone where a wall had been. And he screamed.

"GEAR!"


	9. In The Dark

Thank you again everyone who stayed with me on this. One more chapter to go after this!

This is the chapter I struggled with for so long. I had such a powerful response to Tim that he needed a proper moment of his own before the end. And he'll get another one, trust me, but I think this was important. I hope this has all been worth the wait. There's a bit left, no worries, but I hope this stands worthy of the interest it generated.

Still don't own Static shock. Or _2001: A Space Odyssey_ or Velcro or anything else in Gear's crazy brain. Never will. Please no with the suing. Very annoying. I do claim Tim and Seraph, though the latter is...not great. He takes up a lot of noisy room in my closet.

Enjoy!

* * *

Tim was floating.

It was a little strange, actually. A moment ago he'd been pinned to a wall as if by Velcro. He'd tried to twist away, to get a sense for where Static and Gear might be so he could direct his gift and get himself down, but he couldn't budge. He'd never been good at controlling his powers without at least having a sense for where a person was – and if he guessed wrong, he might get Seraph. So he'd waited, knowing eventually they'd have to let him down and he could act then.

He'd known someone was approaching, but not who or from where. Then there'd been a soft, almost familiar voice.

"Tim, I'm so sorry…"

But that was the end of it. Was he unconscious? Had Gear drugged him? Nothing made sense.

For some reason, an image of his father came to him then, and he felt the usual wash of anger and betrayal. His father was still a sinner, dirty and unforgiveable. He didn't need him here or any other place in his life. He hated him. Tim would rather have been lost in the void than met by that presence or vision or whatever it was. Wasn't that why he'd joined up with Seraph? Because he had to do God's work and stop people like his father?

He felt a strange pang in his chest.

"This is getting weirder," he said or thought to himself – hard to say which. "Where am I, anyway? Maybe I'm dead," he considered idly. "But I don't feel very dead."

Then a bright light flashed before his eyes and Tim felt something warm run through him, making him realize how cold he was. It was as though he'd just fallen into a hot bath and he sighed at the bliss of it.

With nothing else to do but wonder at his circumstances, Tim fell into his habit of talking to God.

"I have to admit, there was something that Gear said that reminded me of what Richie was telling me earlier today. But, this is all Your plan, right? You wouldn't let me do anything wrong, right? I don't think you exactly speak through Seraph, but he's obviously trying to work Your will. That makes it okay, doesn't it?"

But the words came back. _You can't do the right thing the wrong way…_

"But You rained fire on Sodom and Gomorrah, You punished the wicked when it was called for. And You're not doing it here! So somebody had to step up and take care of it! That's what Seraph's doing!"

And Richie's advice floated through his mind. _Maybe you don't have to do whatever you think you have to do. Maybe you aren't even supposed to…_

Tim felt the warmth around him completely evaporate. All the certainty he'd held in his heart, warring with the doubt but ultimately overcoming it, seemed to crumble. He'd wondered about Seraph a time or two, but he'd been so glad to do something, anything, to beat the sinners that were everywhere. He'd gone after them and felt okay about it.

_**Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven.**_

The words hit him so hard if he'd been anywhere but this floaty blackness, Tim would have fallen. The words were practically written in the air around him. He knew them, knew they came from a passage in Luke. But why? Why here? Why now?

His heart lurched again and the coldness shifted. The darkness grew dim and Tim had just the time to wonder if maybe he had not understood everything he should have.

Then everything vanished and he wondered if he was actually dead.

-==OOO==-

"Waking up in a coffin-sized cave isn't exactly my favorite thing," Richie grumbled to himself, blinking heavily.

In the tiny hollow in the rock, there wasn't much room for him to move exactly, but he could at least stop hovering over Tim and situate himself a bit to one side. He glanced upwards; in the eerily lit area, thanks to Backpack's LED display and emergency headlamps, he confirmed that the robot was still where it had positioned itself – serving as the keystone in the arch of collapsed wall above.

"Good thing I'm a genius," he huffed to himself. It turns out having a super-fast brain with a super-fast connection to a nearly-unbreakable robot was helpful when walls were falling. Even before his reflexes had reacted with fight-or-flight his mind had calculated the weight of the wall, the angle at which it was falling outward, the likelihood of survival, and the precise position to send Backpack that would at least give them a chance at being sheltered in a pocket under the ruble.

But it also meant he realized exactly how bad it was that Tim's breathing had stopped.

"Come on!" Richie pivoted in the tiny space so that he was basically straddling the kid, leaning close enough to his face that his visor should have fogged up if there was any air movement from him.

Nothing.

"Oh no you don't!" With Backpack holding up the ceiling, he couldn't really risk puttering around in the compartments for his assisted-breathing apparatus. Richie's brain seemed to have taken over direct motor control, which gave him a moment to consider. Tim was asthmatic, so rescue breathing wouldn't necessarily help. And even being a genius didn't make someone qualified to try a field tracheotomy.

"Last resort, Gear," he told himself. Moving carefully, he wrapped his arms around Tim and pulled, getting the kid into a sitting position, knowing this would lessen the pressure on his throat. With one hand, he patted Tim's pockets. "Come on. It's got to be here. I know you've got one."

His fingers closed on a small cylinder.

"Yes!" Flipping off the cap, Richie pushed the inhaler into Tim's mouth and gave it two good puffs. After a nervous moment or two, he felt a tiny hitch in the chest against his arm. "Good. Breathe again! Come on!"

Richie didn't even know he was rubbing circles on Tim's back, face so close that now his visor was showing the evidence of air coming and going from his lungs. His knees were crammed into rock and broken supports from the wall and the arm that wasn't supporting Tim's frame and rubbing his back was crushed between them, but he didn't notice. Time had stopped for him – there was only Tim's next breath, and the awful silence before it came.

After what felt like forever but his brain informed him had only been a minute or two, Tim's breathing evened out quite a bit and Richie sighed in relief and allowed himself to sag a bit. A moment later, his eyes fluttered open.

"Hey. It's okay. Just take it easy."

He watched Tim blink in a daze, then seem to recognize what had happened.

"Don't worry, Tim. I'm sorry I didn't find your glasses yet but…"

And then Gear was blind again and his knees collapsed under him as a shock of weakening pain hit him in the thighs. He managed to get his arms up to catch himself on the rock around them, and he wasn't totally blind, not really; still, a fuzzy dim LED-colored blur with almost no definition other than that was less than helpful.

"You! What were you doing! Leave me alone!"

_Really?_ Richie's brain rolled its metaphysical eyes. _I try to save his life and he goes at me again anyway? Geez! Gratitude? Ever think of that instead? _But he decided not to say any of that. It wouldn't help.

Besides, Tim's voice was more than a little hysterical. He was obviously scared out of his mind.

"Look, you don't have to do this," Gear said, shifting around until his leg wasn't quite so folded under him. "We're stuck here until somebody digs us out. Which, if I know my partner, won't be long. Static's probably freaking out by now."

"It's a miracle I'm alive," Tim seemed to be talking more to himself than his companion in the tiny space, but Gear shook his head anyway.

"Not really. Static dropped the field holding you to the wall as it started to fall. I grabbed you and ducked and Backpack caught enough of the wall to create a space for us. It's just physics and a little bit of titanium armor-plating. Kinetic energy, potential energy, all that jazz."

"You saved me?" Even not being able to see his expression, there was no doubt Tim's face was wide with disbelief.

"Um. Yeah. It's kinda what we do. Superheroes? Heard of 'em?"

"But Seraph said…"

"Maybe you should stop listening to that Playgirl reject and listen to yourself," Gear interrupted. "'Cause I can't think of one thing he's said that has made any amount of sense."

"He says we're doing God's work."

Ah, there was that voice Richie knew better. Tim-the-angry or Tim-the-righteous didn't sit well with him, but Tim-the-uncertain-but-willing-to-listen was his study buddy and this he could handle. Richie's brain was keeping itself busy calculating everything from the exact impairment of Tim's eyes to the precise PSI being put on Backpack with a variety of scenarios for how much wall was really above them. But it was quiet, unobtrusive, like the scrolling bar of updates on a news channel. He could get at it if he wanted it, but the big picture was very much his to determine.

"Did God ever ask you to do this kind of work? To blow up buildings and set fires and hurt people? Somehow I don't think so. And who decides what you're supposed to do? Seraph? Or do you decide for yourself, Tim?"

"I…"

"You sound like a good kid," Gear said with his practiced yes-really-I'm-a-grown-up-hero-and-not-a-teenager voice. "And it's easy to see that Seraph has been using you to cover his own agenda. But you are the one with the power, Tim. You're the one that can decide what to do. You're the one who can decide whose side you want to be on."

"But…"

"I can tell you are a believer. But are you really supposed to punish sin yourself? I thought people were called to forgive, not to punish."

Tim fell silent and Gear left him with his thoughts. An almost-imperceptible beeping from Backpack was more interesting anyway; it was a signal that rescue was imminent. Within moments, there was a loud scraping from all around them, and the Shock Vox at Gear's hip crackled. Even as he picked it up, he cringed; with the power Static was funneling through it to communicate through the rock, he'd have to replace the transistors for sure.

"Gear! Gear, can you hear me?"

"I hear you, Static. We're fine."

"Okay." Gear could hear his best friend deflate in relief. "I'm about to pull this huge chunk of roof off the pile. I'll try to hold everything else steady, but yell if stuff starts falling."

"Oh, great plan," he replied sarcastically. Even so, it was either that or wait for hours to secure the site and have the authorities dig him out the slow way. _Which would give Tim the perfect chance to hit us all at once and get away_ his mind reminded him. "We're both waiting for you, bro," he said instead.

There was a short pause and then, "I gotcha, Gear."

Hooray for friends who can take a hint!

The next several minutes were rather tense as the sheet-rock and the heavy beams from the walls and the ceiling all shifted again and again as Static lifted sections of the building from the pile. More than once Gear had to shout for him to stop and move things differently or risk a cave-in of their little space. But, even buried alive under half a building, Gear knew his friend. He knew Static would get them out or stop before he caused too much damage – either way, they were safe. It was rather comforting, given that he was, in fact, still buried and still blinded and crippled by the other occupant of their tomb-for-two.

_But you'd look wrecked underneath the mess of little Backpack's cave built for two_ his brain sang at him. He shook his head. _Stop that. This is creepy enough without the references to Space Odyssey, thanks. _

"Okay, bro," came Static's voice. "I think I just hit the last of it. There's one big piece left. Can you see any light yet?"

Gear squinted against Tim's terrible vision, but couldn't make out anything other than the fuzzy blur of Backpacks LED lighting. He levied a glare in Tim's general direction.

"I can," the boy said softly.

"Visual confirmed," he reported dryly. "If you think you've got it, go for it. I'll holler if you gotta stop."

"Got it."

There was a tremendous rumbling and scraping above them and suddenly Backpack beeped and fell inwards, bouncing half on Gear's lap and half across Tim's legs. But before Gear could even crack open his voice to call for a stop, a wash of fresh air hit and the dark blur above became a bright blur.

"Gear!" Static's voice was just above him, and he squinted upwards. Another rumble and the debris piled around them like a snow fort scattered and Gear and Tim were out in the open street again, the sounds of distant sirens slowly coming to them as the authorities scrambled.

And then everything happened at once.

No matter how many times Virgil asked later, Richie never really had a good answer for the sequence of events. But from Virgil's description, what went down was nothing short of impossible or very, very improbable.

As Static leaned over his friend (and foe) in relief, Seraph bellowed like a monster, suddenly breaking loose from his bonds and flying towards the three at a ridiculous speed, almost faster than the eye could track. His arm was cocked and his power was burning – there was no doubt. He was going to slam Static, maybe Gear and Tim, and the blow would be fatal. There was no time for the supercharged superhero to react.

But somehow, Gear did.

Blinded, crippled, and feeling a touch of Tim's asthma, Gear would have said he was as helpless as a kitten. He didn't even KNOW Seraph was coming. How could he?

But he reacted anyway.

From where he was still folded in a boneless pile on the ground, Gear exploded in even quicker movement. One arm unerringly found Static's shoulders while the other caught Tim's collar and dragged. With a speed that would have impressed The Flash, Gear threw himself and the other two out of harm's way. Seraph passed so close that they felt the heat of his power burn their faces, but he hit rock.

"Stay down, you jerk!" Static reacted a minute too late, but not without style. He managed to turn in Gear's grip and draw a much larger, heavier beam from the decimated building across Seraph's legs, pinning him to the ground.

"You…saved me," Tim breathed.

And then Gear could see again, and his legs were fine. But Seraph was shouting.

Tim looked at him wonderingly. Gear shrugged. "Hero, remember?"

"But…how? How did you see him coming? You were blind." There was a tremor in Tim's voice that Gear didn't understand.

"Yeah! Bro, you got some crazy reflexes or something. Or a guardian angel," Static joked. But he squeezed Gear's shoulder almost hard enough to bruise and Gear knew what his best friend wasn't saying had to do with fear and are-you-really-okay and sorry-I-didn't-stop-him that they'd sort through later.

"A guardian angel?" Tim asked breathlessly.

"How else do you explain us getting out of Tinkerbell's path unscathed?" Static asked archly. He was standing and pulling Gear to his feet now, looking warily at the other Bang Baby in their midst.

"You…" Tim turned to Gear, "you said it wasn't a miracle that we weren't crushed."

"Um, yeah that was a miracle!" Static snorted.

"And now you…you got away from Seraph even though all my power was being used on you. You…there's no way." Tim's eyes were huge.

"I'm sure there's a perfectly rational explanation," Gear shrugged again, more uncomfortable. He felt like he was only having half a conversation with Tim, and the rest was happening inside the kid's head. He took a few deep breaths, though, glad to be rid of Tim's asthma – after that little stunt, he could use untroubled oxygen for a while.

"I don't need a rational explanation. Rational explains Seraph and me – we're Bang Babies," Tim said slowly. "But that's twice you risked your life against bad odds to save me. Twice you saved me and you shouldn't have."

"And Static. Don't forget him," Gear winked at his partner.

"Oh. Oh my God." Tim's hands balled into fists and his nose crinkled hard. "Oh my God. He was right. And you were right. All along you were right. Seraph was wrong. I've been…oh my God."

"Hey," Gear reached out a hand. Tim didn't look like a bad guy now. In fact, he looked like he was about ten years younger and he'd just learned why it hurt to be a bully on the playground.

"I…I did this. But," and his eyes, even lost and swimming, glinted with a fanatical light, "I can make up for it."

Tim turned and moved towards where Seraph was yelling.

"You! You betrayer! Release me from your curse! You will pay for this, you Judas!"

"I have betrayed, Seraph, but not you. I betrayed my God. And He will punish me in His own way. But you betrayed Him too. And me. And for that I'm going to give you exactly what you deserve."

As Gear and Static watched, Tim's body jerked once and he reached out his right hand, palm out. Slowly he bent his fingers, closing his hand, and as he did, there was no denying a tiny wisp of light so faint it could have been a trick of the streetlamps except it wasn't.

"You're the one who taught me, remember?" Tim laughed brokenly. "You're the one who taught me to spread my gifts out so I hit lots of people at once, so they wouldn't all feel it. Or so I wouldn't hurt them permanently. Did you ever wonder what would happen if I put everything of me into one person, just one? Do you think maybe I could burn you with my disability and you'd bear it for life as I will?"

Seraph's face stilled in terror and Tim leaned close.

"Let's find out."

"Can he really do that?" Static turned to Gear, eyes wide.

"Um," his breath hitched. His brain was racing and not giving him answers he liked. "It's possible."

"Tim, stop!" Static cried, racing forward. "You don't want to do this. You're a good kid. You don't want to hurt him."

"Please," Gear moved right to the boy's side. "I already told you that it isn't your job to punish. It's your job to forgive. Don't do this."

"He deserves no less," Tim almost snarled, or, he would have if he hadn't been fighting back tears. "He can take my walker and my glasses and my inhaler and live the rest of his life unable to hurt anybody ever again. It's better than what he would have done to you."

"But you're not Seraph. You're not him. You're a good kid. And you mean well. Won't this make your God sad? Wouldn't you rather make Him proud?" Static asked softly.

"Tim." Gear moved so he could meet his eyes. "I know you know this one. 'Forgive and you shall be forgiven.' Seraph would have done the wrong thing. Please…don't do the wrong thing too."

"Is it really wrong?" he asked, sounding much smaller again.

"If it isn't, you're still doing it for the wrong reasons."

The strength went out of Tim then and he dropped his arm. His chin pressed tightly against his chest, he heaved a terrible sob, just once, before his legs gave way. Gear and Static caught him on either side, meeting one another's eyes and knowing that Tim had stopped projecting his body's frailties into Seraph and anybody else. They eased him to the ground and sat with him even as the sirens of the night drew closer and the flashing lights painted them in red.


	10. Revelation

So, we've made it. My beta-reader claims that this chapter makes the story work. I hope she's right. I know it doesn't quite go where I expected at the start. But I think where it goes is right. I hope you agree.

I give this to you all. You stuck with me, believed in me, came back to read my poor unfinished chapters time and again, and you deserve the best I can offer. I hope this comes close. This is for you.

Enjoy!

* * *

"Can I see him?"

The nurse looked Richie up and down and looked at her chart again. Then she shrugged.

"I guess so, kid. He's been really good for us. And we've got him hooked up to something that will render him unconscious if we hit the alarm, so even if he does try something he probably won't get far. You willing to risk it?"

"Yes."

She nodded and led him down a corridor, then down some stairs, then down another corridor. At one of the checkpoints she spoke quietly to a guard who met Richie's eyes with determination and instructions about "only 10 minutes and then I shut him down if you're not out yet." Richie just nodded to it all and followed.

And then the last door was opened.

Tim was lying on the bed, hands at his chest. A step closer and Richie could see a well-worn Bible pressed against him, as though he'd been reading and set it down but didn't want to let it go. The room was brightly lit, and Tim was shackled to the bed and covered in monitoring devices. He seemed lost in thought.

"Um. Hey," Richie coughed a little awkwardly. Tim's head shot around and he blinked behind his glasses.

"Richie?"

"Yeah." He moved to the one chair in the room, beside the bed, and sat down. "I…I heard about everything. And I just…I wanted to come and make sure you were okay."

"Oh. Yeah. I mean, no," and his face paled. "I'm…well, I'm going away. The deal will keep me out of prison, but I'm not going to be back at school any time soon."

"Yeah, I heard. And I heard you helped the police, too. Told them about everything. Told them about why you did it."

"Yeah."

Silence reigned for several moments.

"So, why are you here?" Tim said finally.

"Well, not to drop off homework," Richie tried to force a smile, but the joke failed utterly. "I just…I keep remembering that last conversation we had, you know?" _And no, it doesn't matter that the last one I remember isn't the same one you're thinking of; they were similar enough for it to count_, he thought.

"Yeah?"

"And I wanted to make sure you were going to be okay."

"I don't…I don't know," Tim answered slowly. "I made so many mistakes, Richie. I should never have…well. I did a lot of bad things. I hurt a lot of people. I almost got Static and Gear killed. I don't know what would have happened if Gear hadn't saved us both. Seraph was crazy enough to kill me even though I thought he was my friend."

Richie just waited. Tim sighed and spoke again.

"And I did it all because…because I was hurt. And mad. Because other people hurt me. Not you. People from school. Even my dad. And I just…I wanted to make it right."

"But how you did it, that could never make it right," Richie said softly.

"I know that now." Tim closed his eyes. "I thought I understood what God wanted from me. I thought I understood that I had been blessed to punish sinners. It was so perfect. I could inflict judgment without doing real harm. What else could God have wanted? But…I didn't really understand what harm meant." He looked at Richie and his eyes were wet. "Did you know that one of the little girls I scared with my powers came to visit me? She said she has nightmares about the dark now. She asked me why I did it to her and how she can feel better. And...I couldn't answer her."

"Tim…" Richie began, but then trailed off. What could he say?

"I thought the rules were easy. But they aren't. I thought I could just…do things, you know? And it would somehow make it all good or prove it was all evil. But it doesn't work that way. I don't know exactly what right and wrong means anymore. Except that I know I was wrong."

"Tim," Richie tried again, "nothing is as simple as we want it to be. The people we want to love, or the people we want to hurt, or even the people we want to be. It doesn't…it doesn't have short answers. It doesn't come fast. Even being a Bang Baby doesn't seem to fix things. Maybe it makes it worse."

"It did for me. I'm glad there are people like Static and Gear out there. Being blessed made them better, not worse."

"You're not worse. You have the rest of your life to be better."

"You told me that I should be who I was supposed to be, but that I would have to figure it out on my own. Well, not exactly, but that's what you were getting at, right? That I couldn't be who I thought I was until I figured out what that meant?"

"Something like that," Richie nodded.

"What I'm figuring out is that I don't know anything about myself that doesn't start and end in being mad or hurt. But now I will have time to deal with it. It's like my heart was always lashing out without my permission. Does that make sense?"

"More than you might think," Richie said wryly, thinking of his own brain's uncontrollable nature.

"I thought there were rules. And maybe there are, but they aren't easy and they don't fit on note=cards. But I can make some for myself and live by those and that will be enough. And if they're true for me, and if they fall under what I believe God is asking me to do, then that will make them good. And that's what I've got to do now. It won't be easy. I don't want to do it in a room like this for the rest of my life."

He turned away for a moment before meeting Richie's gaze unflinchingly. "But if that's what it takes, then I can handle that. Maybe all I ever needed was to listen to myself, and it's quiet enough in here for that."

-==OOO==-

"So, how was the visit?" Virgil asked, swinging his feet in the chair. Homework was spread before him, but his attention was all on Richie.

"He's…okay. I mean, he's going to be locked up for a long time and people will always be afraid of him but I think he's going to be a better person now. He and I are going to email for a while. And he gave me something to think about."

"Oh?" Virgil turned.

"He was talking about rules and how the black-and-white thing ultimately broke down for him. I think I've been trying too hard to put words to things. To diagnose my brain, to give it a term that has a finite definition and meaning and a set of patterns and expected outcomes. And I don't think my brain works that way anymore. I don't think I can work that way. I think I just…I'm just me. My brain is my brain. And if I start admitting to myself that not everything has to be clear-cut for it to be okay, I'll feel better."

"Also…" Virgil started to interrupt, but waited to make sure Richie had said what he meant to say.

"Also?"

"Well, you seem to do better when you talk, you know? The stuff you really tell me about, it gets better. It's when you don't tell me things, like before I knew about this, that it gets too much. You should just talk more. Even just to me."

"You know, I have nightmares where I'm in trouble and I can't seem to call for help," Richie confessed.

"And big-brain analysis says…?"

"That really what I'm afraid of is that there will be stuff I could scream and nobody would hear. That it isn't real if nobody knows and acknowledges it, and that nobody's listening. And if it isn't real, I can't fix it. But Tim said something that makes me think maybe I can listen to myself and it will be enough. And, if you're around, you can listen." And Richie felt himself get incredibly shy before the eyes of his best friend. _But what if Virgil didn't…?_

"I always hear you." Then, with a wry grin, "Especially when you scream. You scream like a toddler."

"Oh yeah? Well which one of us got into a fight on the internet defending the merits of 'Veggie Tales' for four hours a few weeks ago? I didn't think it was me." Richie jumped back at him, feeling relief wash through him. They were okay.

"You keep that up and I'm gonna zap you out into the junkyard and stick your face down that mysterious slimy hole in the back and see how scared you are!"

"Virgil, your face could scare the knot-holes out of TREES."

"Yeah, but you know you love it."

"Yeah. Yeah I do." And this time he said it looking straight at Virgil without shame. _Listen to yourself, huh Tim? Yeah, I can do that._

"I know, Rich."

"Is it okay?"

"It is." This time it was Virgil who was staring at Richie intensely, as though fighting through a wall of his own with the power of his not-quite-glare.

"How come?"

"'Cause I don't know if I'm gay the way you are, but that's not what matters. You are essential, Richie, to me, to my life. You know? Laugh if you want, but that's what it is. And I'm not going to let it be weird because I won't let anything get in the way of you and me being you-and-me." He fidgeted after saying it, but his shoulders eased as if he'd been holding it in for a while.

"That was unexpectedly very deep, Virg. But you're only partially right."

"Which part is wrong?" he looked up in alarm.

"The me being gay part. I mean, I am. But a lot of it is you, you know. If I didn't know you, would I be gay in a Virgil-vacuum? I don't know. Probably. But who knows? It's what you said. You're essential to me and my life. I guess I just take it farther than you do or something." Apparently Richie didn't do half-disclosure anymore. _Score another one for Tim and his existential crisis._

"I don't know yet if that's true."

"What do you mean?" Richie's eyes widened.

"Rich, I just started thinking about all this stuff. And the…connection between us, whatever word you want to put on it, that's the most important thing in my life right now. Everything else, Daisy and dates and all, you know I'd dump every bit of it if you asked me to. You are essential. If that means that I'll inevitably wind up gay for you the way you did for me, well, that's what's going to happen. I just…I'm not there yet." He looked away now, ashamed.

"Okay, Virg. That's okay."

"Yeah?"

"Definitely."

Richie turned away and felt his mouth curve up into a tiny smile.

Essential. Inevitable.

Yes, everything was going to be okay.


End file.
